Baku, Azerbaijan, April 24
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Russia’s Gazprom and Turkmenistan may ink further short or medium-term deals on gas supply, Ashley Sherman, principal analyst, Caspian upstream at Wood Mackenzie research and consulting company told Trend.
Renewed flows demonstrate the significant improvement in the Turkmenistan-Gazprom relationship since 2016, when the latest price dispute intensified, the analyst believes.
“For Turkmenistan's struggling economy, additional export revenues – in hard currency – are much-needed. For Russia, this is a strategic deepening of bilateral ties, while helping to optimize Gazprom's management of its own production capacity. What's more, further short or medium-term deals are likely. But the annualized volume will not exceed the current level of around 5 bcm per year. This is in line with Gazprom's five-year deal for Uzbek gas in 2018-22. But still far removed from previous heights of Turkmen gas exports to Gazprom: 10-12 bcm per year in 2009-14 and the pre-2009 peak of more than 40 bcm per year,” noted Sherman.
He believes that the scale of Turkmenistan's deliveries to Gazprom will be limited, dwarfed by the rising volumes exported to China.
“We will also watch out for progress in gas relations with Iran, Turkmenistan's southern neighbor. A restart of gas deliveries is likely in the early 2020s, after arbitration completes on a commercial dispute,” the analyst added.
Turkmenistan has recently resumed the export of natural gas to Russia after a three-year break. Gazprom company intends to purchase up to 1.155 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Turkmenistan until June 30.
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