More PRC Pipeline Diplomacy
It never stops! And there's no regime too unsavoury for China to buy energy from: Iran, Sudan, now - Turkmenistan. The pace of the deals this year has been fast and furious - or maybe I never noticed them before.
Few details, but read the BBC and Bloomberg reports below.
Chinese sign up for Turkmen gas
Turkmenistan and China have agreed to build a pipeline to supply Turkmen natural gas for the energy-hungry Chinese economy.
Details of the deal, which was reached in Beijing during a rare visit by Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov, were not immediately available.
Turkmenistan's gas reserves are second only to Russia's in the ex-USSR.
Russia recently agreed to build gas pipelines to China and a Kazakh oil pipeline to China was opened last year.
From Bloomberg:
Turkmenistan, PetroChina Parent Sign Gas Agreement
April 4 (Bloomberg) -- Turkmenistan has signed an agreement with China National Petroleum Corp. to build a natural gas pipeline to carry supplies of the fuel to the world's fastest- growing major economy.
China National Petroleum, the nation's biggest oil company, and Turkmenistan's Ministry of Oil, Gas and Mineral Resources signed the agreement in Beijing yesterday. The parties gave no financial details of the accord. Turkmenistan will supply 30 billion cubic meters of gas to China annually, starting in 2009, the Interfax news agency reported.
Turkmenistan, the second-largest natural gas producer in the former Soviet Union, has an estimated 23.1 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves, and plans to produce as much as 240 billion cubic meters a year, Turkmenistan.ru reported in February. China, the world's largest energy user after the U.S., is seeking oil and gas supplies to meet the needs of an economy that expanded 9.9 percent last year.
Turkmenistan President Saparmurat Niyazov signed two accords with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao last night, including an energy agreement.
The two countries will carry out joint exploration and development of gas fields along the Amu Darya River in Turkmenistan near the Turkmen-Uzbek border and haven't decided yet how to divide gas produced from the field, Interfax said.
Turkmenistan will increase gas prices to world levels in 2007 so it can invest in its fields, Niyazov said in December.
China's gas production may rise to as much as 150 billion cubic meters by 2020 from 100 billion cubic meters in 2010, according to a Nov. 12 report by the State Information Center's China Economic Information Network. Consumption of the fuel may more than double to 220 billion cubic meters by 2020 from 100 billion in 2010, it said.
