May 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan plans to produce 75b cubic metres of gas this year, up from 70bcm last year, a senior official told Reuters on the sidelines of the annual gas conference in the Caspian Sea resort of Avaza. Turkmenistan has been boosting its output to hit increased demand.
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
May 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s gas export volume is set to fall by nearly 10% this year because of a decline in sales to Russia, a senior SOCAR official told Reuters. SOCAR is the Azerbaijani state energy company. This is important as gas is a major currency earner for Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
May 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A landslide in Georgia damaged a pipeline, temporarily cutting off gas supplies to Armenia, media reported. It’s unclear how serious the damage caused by the landslide is or when gas supplies through the pipeline will resume. Gazprom Armenia said it had enough reserves to cover the shortfall from the pipeline
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
MAY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan said that Uzbekistan was still restricting gas supplies to its southern city of Osh. Osh has reportedly been without gas for a few weeks, generating some social tension. Uzbekistan’s Soviet era gas system supplies southern Kyrgyzstan with gas. Relations between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are strained.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – If more evidence was needed of the burgeoning Turkmenistan- China axis, last week provide it.
First, on May 7, Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, sitting rather comically on an oversize gilt throne, officially opened a new gas processing plant at the Bagtyarlyk field in central Turkmenistan.
The field holds an estimated 1.3 trillion cubic metres of gas which it is pumping to China, just like several other fields in Turkmenistan.
China holds exclusive rights to developing Turkmenistan’s onshore gas fields and the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) paid for the new processing plant at Bagtyarlyk.
Turkmenistan’s gas exports have swelled by a fantastic proportion over the past few years. Reuters quoted a CNPC official saying that last year Turkmenistan exported 20 billion cubic metres of gas to China and that this year the amount would grow to 25bcm. He said the aim was to hit 40bcm of gas exports to China in 2016 and 65bcm in 2020 when the giant Galkynbysh field comes on stream.
According to one source, Turkmenistan already supplies a sixth of China’s gas needs.
Mr Berdymukhamedov can claim much credit for this turnaround. His predecessor was more inward looking, more enthralled with Russia. Mr Berdymukhamedov went after China as a client, a strategy which is clearly paying off.
And a few days after opening the new processing plant, Mr Berdymukhamedov was in Beijing on an invitation from the Chinese president. There he was feted as a major ally, given a state welcome and offered a strategic partnership.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Closed since January, Azerbaijan will start sending gas to Russia through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline soon as repair work is almost finished, the head of the state energy company SOCAR, Rovnag Abdullayev, said. Russia and Azerbaijan have rowed over gas supplies through the pipeline.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — They may be neighbours but Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has had little time over the past four years to visit his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rakhmon.
Now though, Mr Berdymukhamedov has been in Dushanbe catching up with Mr Rakhmon and mulling various projects, particularly in the energy and transport sector.
It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to hear of Mr Berdymukhamedov’s first trip to Dushanbe since 2010. The geo-politics of gas has thrown these two countries together.
Turkmenistan has transformed itself into one of China’s biggest gas suppliers. It needs Tajikistan to help it pump gas to its client and pipelines are the main motivating factor behind Mr Berdymukhamedov’s trip to Dushanbe.
The state-owned China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) has already signed a deal with the Tajik authorities to lay part of a new pipeline that will pump gas from Turkmenistan to China. Through the Turkmen state newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan, Mr Berdymukhamedov said work on the Tajik branch of the gas pipeline to China would start shortly.
Media reported the two leaders discussed other issues during Mr Berdymukahmedov’s stay in Dushanbe, security after NATO leaves Afghanistan and regional transport issues, but energy clearly formed the basis of the meeting.
Energy, and China’s thirst for it, sets the diplomatic agenda inside Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
MAY 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon hosted talks with his Turkmen counterpart President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov for the first time in four years. Various deals and documents were signed by both sides, including the start of work on a new gas pipeline.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
MAY 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran and Turkmenistan are set to re-negotiate their goods-for-gas deal, Iranian media reported quoting Iran’s energy minister Bijan Namdar Zanganesh. Turkmenistan has been supplying gas to Iran for years in return for goods such as home appliances and other electrical products that Iran manufactures.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
APRIL 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Union is considering extending the proposed TANAP-TAP gas pipeline from Azerbaijan from its current endpoint in Italy to France and Spain, the Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported quoting a European Commission official. TANAP-TAP is supposed to be completed by 2019.
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(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)