Kazakstan and Turkmenistan Talk Pipelines

Despite their differences of opinion over the status of the Caspian, Kazakstan and Turkmenistan are working together on pipeline matters, and specifically on how to increase Turkmen gas exports, NBCentralAsia commentators say.



On May 2, Kazak prime minister Karim Masimov and Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov met in Ashgabat and discussed plans to lay a new pipeline branch from Turkmenistan to Russia, running via Kazakstan along the Caspian shore. They also talked about the potential for the Kazak national company Kazmunaigaz to engage in developing the Turkmen oil and gas sector.



Finally, they also discussed transport, with talk of laying a railway line between the two countries and resuming flights from Ashgabat to Almaty.



Berdymuhammedov has invited his counterpart Nursultan Nazarbaev to pay an official visit in the near future. An NBCentralAsia observer based in Ashgabat believes the two leaders will sign agreements on the issues discussed with Masimov.



“Their joint priority… will be [gas] transit, and after that comes joint development of [Caspian] sea and shelf deposits,” said the source.



This rapprochement on energy and transport issues will not be derailed by their continuing differences over the Caspian Sea. Kazakstan wants to divide the Caspian sea along a median line, while Turkmenistan wants to carve the sea up into unequal sectors taking the length of each state’s shoreline into account.



Ivan Voytsekhovsky, an economic observer at the Kazak newspaper Central Asia Monitor, said bilateral agreements have already been signed on the Caspian issue, so there should be no major disputes.



A new gas pipeline along the shore of the Caspian would be in the interests of all parties, including Russia. In about five years’ time, the gas production volumes in Turkmenistan will go up significantly. Kazakstan is keen to invest in the project, said Voytsekhovsky.



However, Gulnur Rakhmatulina, head of economic studies at the Kazakstan Institute for Strategic Research, says a final settlement on the Caspian dispute would get projects currently at the planning stage moving more quickly.



“There are a lot of Caspian projects being planned at the moment, but until the main issue – the territorial one – is solved, these projects will not be as productive as they could be,” she said.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)