ID :
125370
Tue, 06/01/2010 - 13:56
Auther :

Turkmenistan launches 2-billion-dollar gas pipeline project.

ASHGABAT, May 31 (Itar-Tass) - Turkmen President Gurbanguly
Berdymukhammedov took part in Monday's ceremony to weld the first pipes of
the East-West gas pipeline, which symbolically launched the construction
of this trunk line, with a capacity of up to 30 billion cubic meters of
gas a year and a length of 1,000 kilometers.
The ceremony took place at the booster station of the Shatlyk field on
the Dovletabad-Deryalyk line, the Turkmen stretch of the Central Asia -
Center-4 pipeline (Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-Russia).
The republic's domestic gas pipeline will link the gas fields in the
east of the country with the shore of the Caspian Sea, which is the
starting point for the projects to build Caspian and trans-Caspian
pipelines: to Russia and bypassing Russia.
"The construction of the gas pipeline has both economic and political
significance. Creating a gas transportation system loop will enable us to
boost the potential to export natural gas, and, at the same time, meet the
domestic demand, especially in developing electric power generation," the
Turkmen leader stated in Shatlyk.
The gas pipeline will run through three [of the countries' five]
regions. The project is worth two billion dollars. Seven booster stations
will service the pipeline.
Speaking about natural gas to fill the new pipeline with,
Berdymukhammedov named the country's largest field - the Yuzhny
Iolotan-Osman deposit, whose estimated reserves were revised from 13 to 16
trillion cubic meters of gas this year.
"We'll be building the gas pipeline with our own resources and funds,"
the president said.
The funding will be provided by the Turkmengaz, while the
Turkmenneftegazstroi is responsible for construction works.
In 2008, Turkmenistan was conducting talks with Russia's Gazprom over
building this facility as part of the Caspian gas pipeline, on the basis
of the Central Asia - Center (SATs-3) pipeline. The same year, Ashgabat
announced an international tender to build the East-West pipeline.
In effect, the new pipeline will join the SATs-4 and SATs-3 pipelines
built in Turkmenistan in the Soviet times, Turkmengaz specialists told
Itar-Tass, because the end point of the East-West pipeline, in accordance
with the president's resolution, is the Belek-1 booster station of the
Central Asia-Center-3 pipeline (Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan-Russia).
Turkmenistan plans to finish the construction of the East-West
pipeline by June 2015.
-0-myz/usn


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