Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, Nov.19 / Trend, H.Hasanov /
Foreign investments will be required to develop Turkmenistan's hydrocarbon resources and to ensure their delivery to new markets, Chevron Nebitgas B.V. Turkmenistan Office representative Douglas E.Uchicura said at a oil and gas conference in Ashgabat today.
"One can easily envision at least $50 billion as development costs on the Eloten Field to attain the strategic production growth," he said.
4-14 Tcm was the range of the natural gas in place at the South Yolotan/Osman fields, as confirmed by a third party audit conducted by Gaffney Cline and Associates two years ago. Although Gaffney Cline, at the time, placed the likely figure within that range at 6 Tcm, recent announcements from Turkmenistan have raised the figure to 18 and, most recently, to 21 Tcm.
"Then when you add potential pipeline investments to ensure access to markets that would justify the production growth target on a long-term, sustainable basis, another $100 billion of investment would be needed," he said.
"We continue to believe such goals are achievable," he said. "But, in order to succeed, we need to find mutually beneficial means to create sound, sustainable partnerships which will bring in the necessary investment and expertise."
The U.S. company is negotiating with the Turkmen government to sign a production sharing agreement in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea.
Uchicura said Turkmen President Berdimuhamedov has repeatedly outlined his goals as increasing oil and gas production, modernizing the industry, creating a favorable investment climate, adopting innovative technologies and state of the art equipment, and further diversigying international energy cooperation.
Plans include increasing annual natural gas production to 250 billion cubic meters in 2030. At present, the gas production capacity is 75 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
For the next 20 years, Turkmenistan seeks to ensure a threefold increase in gas production, and likely extraction will be conducted in deep-seated sub-salt sediments at high temperature and pressure levels.The capital investment required for such growth in production are expected to be large.