Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Oct. 24
By Huseyn Hasanov – Trend:
Turkmenistan, which has the fourth largest global natural gas reserves in the world, continues to actively promote the construction of a pipeline to Europe through the Caspian Sea and Azerbaijan.
Turkmenistan has recently announced that the EU expressed its readiness to help attract investment in the implementation of this long-standing project. And this is connected, as official Ashgabat noted, with the fact that on August 12, 2018, after more than twenty years of negotiations, the Caspian countries adopted the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea.
The convention confirms the possibility of laying pipelines along the bottom of the Caspian Sea "subject to the compliance of their designs with environmental requirements and standards."
The text of the document says that only those countries through seabed sector of which the pipeline will be laid, will determine the laying route of the pipeline. This means that the Trans-Caspian underwater gas pipeline, which will supply Turkmen gas to Azerbaijan and from there to the markets of Western Europe, can no longer be vetoed.
The fact that a few days ago, the negotiations were held in Brussels with the Vice-President of the European Commission for the Energy Union, Maros Sefcovic, where top managers of the fuel and energy complex of Turkmenistan took part, has become the evidence of the intensification of the negotiation process.
This fact is particularly noteworthy because it happened against the background of the ongoing negotiations of the Turkmengaz State Concern with the Russian Gazprom joint-stock company on the resumption of gas deliveries interrupted in 2016.
Earlier, the Turkmengaz State Concern said in a statement that the adoption of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea could significantly increase the investment attractiveness of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC). The Trans-Caspian gas pipeline project can be implemented in the framework of the SGC project lobbied by the EU.
The Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline project (TANAP) in which Turkey and Azerbaijan are involved or AGRI (Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector) project can be useful in this direction.
The TANAP pipeline is designed to supply gas from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey and further to the Greek border, where the Trans-Adriatic Gas Pipeline (TAP) will become its continuation. Turkey has previously expressed its interest in the participation of Turkmenistan in the TANAP project, which will increase its profitability.
The negotiations on the delivery of Turkmen gas to Europe have been conducted since 2011. The SGC project, including the Trans-Caspian project, remains a priority for the EU.
In May 2015, the Ashgabat Declaration on Energy was signed. The project of laying a 300-kilometer gas pipeline along the bottom of the Caspian Sea to the shores of Azerbaijan is optimal for the delivery of Turkmen gas to the European market. Further, the Turkmen gas can be delivered to Turkey, which borders with European countries.
Turkmenistan declared its readiness to supply Europe with an annual volume of up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas over 30 years. It is expected that the gas supplies can be provided through the East-West gas pipeline, which begins on the large Turkmen "Galkynysh" field.