Gas Transit Safety Talks in April

A conference on gas and oil transportation proposed by Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov will take place on April 23 and 24.



The conference will provide a forum for discussing a Turkmen initiative voiced in September to ensure the security of pipeline routes. The initiatives was backed by the United Nations, which issued a resolution on the issue.



Turkmenistan is a major exporter of natural gas, in particular, and officials say it holds reserves estimated at 45.5 billion tons of oil equivalent.



Exports currently stand at over 60 billion cubic metres of gas, but the authorities are planning a 150 per cent increase in production and export volumes over the next few years.



The government is concerned that its energy infrastructure is at risk and has proposed a package of international measures to make pipelines less vulnerable to accidents with either natural or man-made causes, and reduce other threats that might come from a change in the political or security environment in third countries that provide transit routes.



An analyst based in Turkmenistan says the concept of ensuring pipeline safety is an original one, but cautions that it would be hard to make it work given the political differences between various transit countries, as well as the lack of coordination among them.



“The gas dispute between long-standing partners Moscow and Kiev, in which mutual gas transit obligations have been ignored, serves as a good example of this,” he said. “It is unlikely that the conference will result in securing any [security] guarantees for pipelines.”



At the same time, he said, the Russian-Ukrainian dispute highlighted how important it was to introduce such measures.