Central Asian gas pipe to raise capacity to 230 mln cu m per day

ASHGABAT, November 22 (RIA Novosti) - A gas pipeline supplying Russia with natural gas from Central Asia will be modernized to pump 230 million cubic meters per day, the president of Turkmenistan said on Thursday.

The 1974 Central Asia-Center gas pipeline that runs from Turkmenistan via Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to Russia currently pumps around 50 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually.

Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia will modernize the gas pipeline to increase its carrying capacity by 20 billion cubic meters. The pipeline will eventually pump 230 million cubic meters of natural gas per day, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov told a meeting of CIS prime ministers who arrived in the Turkmen capital to attend a session of the CIS heads of government.

Turkmenistan is the second largest natural gas producer in the post-Soviet space after Russia. Turkmenistan's natural gas reserves are estimated at 22 trillion cubic meters, the fifth largest in the world.