Kyrgyzstan Ratifies Deal to Build Pipeline to Transit Turkmen Gas to China

China will buy more Turkmen natural gas after it builds a new stretch of the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to China going through Kyrgyzstan’s territory in 2016.

Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atambayev has signed into law a Kyrgyz-Chinese agreement on construction of a natural-gas pipeline in Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyz presidential press service said. The pipeline is part of the Central Asia-China gas pipeline (also known as Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline), which connects Turkmen natural gas fields with China’s northwestern Xinjiang province. In future the pipeline will also carry gas from Kazakhstan’s fields to China.

The deal was initially signed during the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Kyrgyzstan on September 11, 2013.

China began to import Turkmen natural gas in 2009 after the commissioning of Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The pipeline’s throughput capacity is 40 billion cubic meters a year.

In September 2013, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who was on an official visit to Ashgabat, agreed on construction of a fourth stretch of the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline to run through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. The new pipeline is designed to supply an additional 25 billion cubic meters of Turkmen gas to China per year, bringing the total volume of gas supplies to 65 billion cubic meters a year.

The Kyrgyz part of the transit pipeline will have a length of 225 kilometers. China is expected to invest between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion in its construction, which is expected to be completed late in 2016.

(shalemarkets.com , edited by Topco)