ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, Jan. 22
By Huseyn Hasanov – Trend:
Hungary is interested in purchasing natural gas from Turkmenistan, State Secretary of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry Tamas Menczer said, Trend reports referring to Hungary Today news portal.
Menczer made the remark following the meeting of the intergovernmental Hungarian-Turkmen commission for economic cooperation in Budapest on January 20-21.
“Hungary seeks to diversify its sources of raw materials while Turkmenistan ranks fourth in the volume of natural gas reserves in the world,” the state secretary added.
Menczer stressed that after the construction of the necessary infrastructure within the Southern Gas Corridor is over, Hungary will be able to annually purchase five billion cubic meters of gas.
This topic was discussed in Ashgabat in May 2019.
“Hungary hopes that Turkmenistan’s gas resources will be directed to the general energy flow of Central Europe,” Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto told reporters at the time.
The negotiations on the supply of the Turkmen gas to Europe have been held since 2011. Turkmenistan has repeatedly stated readiness to supply up to 40 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe annually.
Ashgabat has recently stated that the EU expressed willingness to help attract investments in the implementation of this project.
The East-West internal gas pipeline, which connected Turkmenistan’s eastern regions full of gas with the western regions, the Caspian Sea coast, was commissioned in 2015.
Moreover, oil and gas resources are being rapidly developed in the Turkmen part of the Caspian Sea. Four offshore projects and three onshore projects are being implemented through foreign investors.