Ankara unveils Turkmen gas push
Turkey will try to firm up plans to produce gas from Turkmen fields with a
foreign partner during an energy ministry trip to the central Asian republic
in June, a Turkish energy official said today.
The plans include an annual production that would at least meet an unfulfilled
contract between Turkey and Turkmenistan signed in the 1990s promising
Ankara 30 billion cubic metres of gas per year.
"Turkey will be making some important deals regarding energy projects with
Turkmenistan ... in the coming period," a high level Turkish energy
official, who declined to be named, told Reuters.
"Turkmenistan ... supports Turkey's gas production and cooperation in energy.
Meetings between the two countries can be brought to an important stage
during the 6-8 June talks," he said.
The official did not specify which companies Turkey would work, with but
said the gas could be used for the Nabucco project pipeline to central
Europe, another pipeline to Greece, or it would be re-exported to third
countries.
Turkey is a member of the Nabucco consortium, which aims to build a pipeline
filled with Caspian gas from Ankara to Austria to decrease Europe's
dependence on Russian supplies.
But its role in the consortium has come into conflict with its desire to be a
gas exporting country, and Ankara last year signed a deal with Iran to
export gas produced in the Islamic republic's South Pars gas field.
Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, both of which border the Caspian Sea have been
pressured in recent months to agree on the terms of a trans-Caspian pipeline
that would allow central Asian gas to be fed into pipeline networks that
extend to Europe.
The last round of talks between Turkey and Turkmenistan took place in March,
but yielded no concrete developments, officials said.
07 May 2008 13:20 GMT
| last updated:
07 May 2008 13:20 GMT
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