Speaking at the conference, Gazprom Deputy Board Chair Alexander Ryazanov set forth tasks that his company is planning to fulfil in cooperation with Turkmenistan in the next few years. Among other things, he highlighted the need to increase natural gas imports, to upgrade and renovate the CAC (Central Asia-Center) gas pipeline on the basis of thorough feasibility studies, to inventory Turkmen gas reserves, to conduct a technological audit of Turkmenistan's gas transportation capacities, and to step up recovery from gas-fields in the republic's Caspian shelf.
Under the 2003 agreement on natural gas supplies between Russia and Turkmenistan, Gazprom shall receive 4.25 billion cubic meters of Turkmen natural gas this year and 6 billion cubic meters next year. By 2009, the annual gas supply shall have reached 70 to 80 billion cubic meters. To make that happen, the sides plan to raise the carrying capacity of the CAC from today's 44-45 billion cubic meters to 50 billion at an initial stage and then up to 80 billion. Also, Gazprom is now considering the possibility of building an additional pipeline via Uzbekistan. If launched, the project may be completed in 2.5 years' time. "We don't want to stop at minimum amounts of gas supply," said Ryazanov.
Amangeldy Pudakov, Turkmenistan's Minister of Oil & Gas Industry and Mineral Resources, is sure that his country will be able to deliver on its long-term contract with Russia. In the year 2010, it will be producing 120 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and by 2020 this amount is expected to double, Pudakov announced. The republic's oil output will be increased to 48 million tons in 2010, to be brought further up, to 100 million, in the subsequent decade. Some 25 billion dollars is expected to be invested in Turkmenistan's oil and gas industry by 2010, said the minister.
According to its organizers, the Russo-Turkmen conference was intended not just to help long-term partners exchange their views on issues of mutual concern, but also to expand business partnership between the two countries.
