Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov.20 / Trend A.Badalova /
China will remain the biggest importer of Turkmen gas in the short and medium term, Russian expert on Central Asia and Trend Expert Council member Stanislav Pritchin believes.
"The Chinese economy is growing rapidly and therefore the country's needs for gas increases. China's long term policy envisages the purchase of great amounts of gas to meet these needs," Pritchin told Trend over telephone.
He said the Chinese market is so capacious that it has enough space for both promising large amounts of Turkmen gas and gas from Russia.
At present Turkmenistan supplies about 25-30 billion cubic meters of gas to China. However, these volumes may increase in the future. In the summer of 2012, the Turkmen State Concern Turkmengaz and the China National Petroleum Corporation CNPC signed a framework agreement on cooperation, under which the volume of annual gas exports from Turkmenistan to China will be increased up to 65 billion cubic meters.
At the same time, China is also an attractive market for Russia. At present, the countries are negotiating on the supply of Russian gas to the volume of 68 billion cubic meters.
As Pritchin said, after starting production on a new largest field in Turkmenistan, the country can focus its efforts on new directions of supply.
However, as Pritchin added, today Turkmenistan has also a Russian direction which is currently not used to full capacity.
"At present 10 billion out of a possible 45 billion cubic meters of Russian gas is supplied to Turkmenistan," Pritchin said.
Speaking about the Trans-Caspian pipeline that would enable transporting Turkmen gas to the European market, Pritchin stressed that the unresolved status of the Caspian Sea still remains as the main obstacle in the way of its implementation.
Last week, Turkmenistan stated that in 2013 it will begin gas production from the largest field at Galkynysh which is the second largest field in the world. Gas production from the field is expected to be at the volume of 30 billion cubic meters.