Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, May 23
By Huseyn Hasanov – Trend:
Since December 2009, more than 263 billion cubic meters of natural gas have been exported from Central Asia after the interstate pipeline to China was commissioned, Trend reports with reference to the Turkmenistan State News Agency.
At the same time, Turkmenistan provides more than 80 percent of the supply of natural fuel, the report said.
As is known, the Central Asia–China gas pipeline includes three parallel branches (A, B and C), the length of each of which is 1,830 kilometers. On the territory of China, the West-East gas pipeline with a length of about 10,000 kilometers is connected to them.
Gas from Central Asia is supplied to 25 provinces, autonomous regions, major cities and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China.
The Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline runs through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. It is planned to build the fourth line of the gas pipeline - through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, with commissioning of which the gas export volume will increase.
In addition, it's planned to increase the gas supply volume to 65 bcm a year, which is more than 1.5 times than the current figures.
According to the forecast of BP, in the next 20 years, the demand for gas in China will more than double. Gas supplies through pipelines in China account for about 40 percent of the total gas imports.