Azerbaijan, Baku, July 11 / Trend E.Ismayilov /
Turkmenistan needs the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline more than the European Union, the managing director and head of the business development department of Azerbaijani ASPI Consulting Engineers, Inc., Ibrahim Mammadzade, told Trend on Wednesday.
ASPI Consulting Engineers, Inc. has been involved in the preparation of the institutional fundamentals of the project, as well as a bidder in the preparation of an evaluation of the environmental and social impacts.
Mammadzade believes the EU wants to solve two issues by implementing this project. First, to secure an alternative to Russian gas and secondly to help the post-Soviet countries diversify their economies. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan, which itself has large reserves of natural gas, will play a transit role in this project which is also beneficial to supplement the state budget.
The Turkmen side needs the pipeline across the Caspian Sea due to the fact that from a geographical point of view, it cannot diversify its gas supplies. The country now supplies gas to China through the main pipeline that passes through the territory of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan (a total of 1800 kilometres) and China (five kilometres).
He said that if Afghanistan becomes stable, Turkmenistan will have great chances to get access to India, which ranks second in Asia after China in terms of gas consumption.
At the same time along with India, there is Pakistan through whose territory the pipeline will run as an option to the Indian destination.
Mammadzade said the Turkmen side is interested in the implementation of the Trans-Caspian project, since the prospect of Turkmen gas reaching through Afghanistan the south is foggy and Iran cannot be regarded as a fully-fledged gas market, as the country itself is a gas producing country.
Iran, in turn is interested in connecting to the Chinese pipeline to supply gas to China. At the same time Beijing is not interested in the high gas prices which are affected by the length of the pipeline. Also at best value, China can purchase gas from Russia which is always ready for delivery.
The Trans-Caspian gas pipeline is important for theTurkmenistan gas pipeline from the point of view of an alternative gas supply route.
Referring to the political component of the Trans-Caspian project which is linked to the unresolved status of the Caspian Sea, Mammadzade noted that all five littoral states signed the Tehran Convention (Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea), according to which all such projects must have an environmental study.
In this regard, the environmental and social impact assessment document must be prepared at such a level that none of the parties would have any questions, he said.
The Trans-Caspian gas pipeline running to around 300 kilometres will be laid from the Turkmen coast of the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijani, where it will be linked to the Southern Gas Corridor. Negotiations between Turkmenistan and the EU and other countries on the construction of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline have been on-going since the late 90s.
So far there are no direct agreements on the implementation of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline. However, in September, 2011 the EU Council gave a mandate for negotiations between the EU, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to build the pipeline. Russia expressed a negative attitude towards this project.