Turkmen-Chinese Gas Pipeline Launched
Turkmen-Chinese Gas Pipeline Launched
Chinese president Hu Jintao joined three Central Asian leaders on December 14 to celebrate the formal launch of a major pipeline which will supply his energy-hungry country with natural gas.
Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov and his Kazak and Uzbek counterparts, Nursultan Nazarbaev and Islam Karimov, attended the ceremony at Samandepe.
The 7,000 kilometre pipeline will run from Turkmenistan via Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to western China, carrying 40 billion cubic metres of gas a year once it reaches full capacity in 2012.
The eight billion US dollar construction project is being financed by the China Development Bank.
At the ceremony, Berdymuhammedov said the “well coordinated and efficient work” by experts from the four states involved reflected “common goals and a clear vision of long-term cooperation”.
The ceremony received a lot of coverage from Turkmenistan’s state-run TV and press, and appeared to be widely welcomed.
"This is a wonderful event as it means we will acquire a large new export," said one Ashgabat after watching the event on television. "We need access to world markets. We’ve been virtually reliant on one pipeline [to Russia], and now we have a more dependable and hopefully more predictable partner."
An observer in Lebap region, where the launch ceremony took place, recalled that Russia – currently the major buyer of Turkmen gas – had scaled down purchases this year.
After that, he said, “The government placed all its hopes in the pipeline to China. And as we can see, the Chinese have coped with the task pretty quickly."
Another resident of eastern Turkmenistan said she hoped the pipeline project would create many new jobs for local people.
"We know the construction work hasn’t been completed yet, and we are hoping that more construction workers and other specialists will be needed,” she said. “We are very pleased about it.”
An employee of the state-run oil and gas firm Turkmenneftegaz said dealing with China was likely to prove more productive than what he said was the "limited" nature of cooperation with Gazprom.
"Ahead of the pipeline launch, our president and Hu Jintao had signed an agreement to avoid double taxation treaty, a deal whereby China will provide loans on soft terms to buy technology for the oil and gas industry and telecommunications sector, as well as railway trains," he noted. "The grand pipeline project has opened up these opportunities to us."
An engineer working on the pipeline described it as of "historic” importance.
“There are also other projects to supply gas to India and Europe. That's excellent. Then we’ll have a choice,” he said.
(NBCA is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)
Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov and his Kazak and Uzbek counterparts, Nursultan Nazarbaev and Islam Karimov, attended the ceremony at Samandepe.
The 7,000 kilometre pipeline will run from Turkmenistan via Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to western China, carrying 40 billion cubic metres of gas a year once it reaches full capacity in 2012.
The eight billion US dollar construction project is being financed by the China Development Bank.
At the ceremony, Berdymuhammedov said the “well coordinated and efficient work” by experts from the four states involved reflected “common goals and a clear vision of long-term cooperation”.
The ceremony received a lot of coverage from Turkmenistan’s state-run TV and press, and appeared to be widely welcomed.
"This is a wonderful event as it means we will acquire a large new export," said one Ashgabat after watching the event on television. "We need access to world markets. We’ve been virtually reliant on one pipeline [to Russia], and now we have a more dependable and hopefully more predictable partner."
An observer in Lebap region, where the launch ceremony took place, recalled that Russia – currently the major buyer of Turkmen gas – had scaled down purchases this year.
After that, he said, “The government placed all its hopes in the pipeline to China. And as we can see, the Chinese have coped with the task pretty quickly."
Another resident of eastern Turkmenistan said she hoped the pipeline project would create many new jobs for local people.
"We know the construction work hasn’t been completed yet, and we are hoping that more construction workers and other specialists will be needed,” she said. “We are very pleased about it.”
An employee of the state-run oil and gas firm Turkmenneftegaz said dealing with China was likely to prove more productive than what he said was the "limited" nature of cooperation with Gazprom.
"Ahead of the pipeline launch, our president and Hu Jintao had signed an agreement to avoid double taxation treaty, a deal whereby China will provide loans on soft terms to buy technology for the oil and gas industry and telecommunications sector, as well as railway trains," he noted. "The grand pipeline project has opened up these opportunities to us."
An engineer working on the pipeline described it as of "historic” importance.
“There are also other projects to supply gas to India and Europe. That's excellent. Then we’ll have a choice,” he said.
(NBCA is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)
