Turkmenistan still keen on supplying gas to Europe via Trans-Caspian pipeline - upper house speaker
ASHGABAT. Sept 29 (Interfax) - The European vector was and remains on the agenda of Turkmenistan's international energy cooperation, the speaker of the upper house of the Turkmen parliament Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, was quoted by the Turkmenistan State News Agency as saying at a meeting of Central Asian delegations and the Eastern Committee of the German Economy in Berlin on Friday.
Ashgabat aims to increase its gas production capacity and expand the diverse gas transport infrastructure to ensure gas exports to world markets, he said.
"It should be emphasized that the European vector was and remains on the agenda of the international energy cooperation of Turkmenistan. In this context, I want to confirm Turkmenistan's firm position on gas supplies to Europe by means of building the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline," Berdimuhamedow said.
"To that end, a great deal has been done over the past 15 years, systemic partnership was built with the European Union," he said.
"We are ready to renew our active communications with relevant agencies of the European Commission and certain European states and companies in the context of the implementation of big international energy projects," Berdimuhamedow said.
He also proposed partnership with German businesses in the electricity sector, including on renewable energy.
"The construction and modernization of power plants, the development of a network of power transmission lines, and other projects could serve as spheres of our joint endeavor," Berdimuhamedow said.
Concurrently, Turkmenistan pays a lot of attention to developing green energy, including using solar, wind and hydrogen energy, he said.
Another pressing issue is cooperation with foreign companies and international organizations on the reduction of atmospheric methane emissions and utilizing associated gas at hydrocarbon fields, he said.
Turkmenistan has the world's fourth biggest reserves of natural gas, after Russia, Iran and Qatar, which it exports to China, Russia and Azerbaijan (by swap via Iran).
For years now, Turkmenistan has been in talks with Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia and the European Union over the possibility of building a Trans-Caspian pipeline with an annual capacity of between 10 billion and 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Commenting on the project recently, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said it was unlikely to be implemented until there was clarity about sources of its funding. Earlier, he had said that the pipeline was not an Azerbaijani project and that his country's role was merely a transit one.
For a long time Moscow and Tehran opposed the project. However, in August 2018, the presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iran met in Aktau, Kazakhstan, and signed a convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea. Under the document, building a pipeline on the Caspian Sea bottom would not require consent of all littoral states but only those where the pipeline was to pass. In the case of the Trans-Caspian pipeline, these are Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.