Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, Oct. 12 / Trend , H.Hasanov /
Turkmenistan has enough gas for guaranteed supplies, not only for the present transnational gas export routes, but also for the planned ones, manager for business development of Gaffney, Cline & Associates Jim Gilletta said in an interview with the Turkmen Dovlet Khabarlary.
"Research work carried out on the Southern Yoloten - Osman bloc gives ground to say
that its gas reserves are more than required to provide guaranteed supplies many, many decades ahead -- not only the present transnational export gas routes, but also the planned ones," he was quoted as saying by the local media.
Based on recent estimates, he said, the initial geological reserves of the Southern Yoloten-Osman is in the range of up to 21.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
Now, it has been confirmed that the initial geological reserves of Southern Yoloten - Osman, Mianara and Yashlar gas fields amount to a maximum of 26.2 trillion cubic meters of gas. This makes the natural storehouse of "blue fuel" the world second largest.
He said the British company in 2008 had already conducted an independent assessment of the geological gas reserves on the Southern Yoloten - Osman, Mianara and Yashlar gas fields. "Our company works only with those partners who need an objective, not a fictional estimation," Gilletta said.
As a result of hard work, much more information was received in 2011 that was used to audit in these fields and clarify the available estimate of gas reserves.
"This is, undoubtedly, a great success, as the data stunned even us, as professionals. Of course, we were very pleased to announce that the results of the 2008 research activity were much improved in 2011," he noted.
He underscored that "this data can increase because the limits of the north-western, south-eastern and western borders of the unique Turkmen field Southern Yoloten - Osman have not been defined yet. It is more likely that the data received following future exploration works will exceed the currently available data on natural gas reserves of these deposits and the country as a whole".
"If we announced that the South deposit Yoloten-Osman is the fourth or fifth largest deposit in the world in 2008, now we know that this field comes in the second place among the world's largest gas fields," he said.
Gilletta also spoke about "the effect it will have on Turkmenistan's gas business".
"We must also take into account the fact that your country has a lot of other gas storerooms. But even these fields would be more than enough to satisfy Turkmen gas export to the already involved pipelines," he said.
"However, the work carried out on the South Yoloten-Osman bloc assures us to say that its has more than enough gas required for export for many, many decades, even via the planned export routes," he said, "and I mean Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India, and the route in European direction."
An alternative gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to China was put into operation in December 2009 and there was an additional branch in Iran in January 2010, thus the energy market expanded.
The project on an additional pipeline to Russia (the Caspian Sea - in Kazakhstan), Europe ("Nabucco" - on the Caspian Sea through Azerbaijan) and India (via Pakistan, Trans) are now being mulled.