Turkmenistan ready to sell gas to Europe

Turkmenistan is ready to sell some of its vast gas reserves to Europe, a state-run newspaper reported today, quoting the country’s president.

Turkmenistan has some of the world’s biggest gas reserves and is the second-largest gas producer in the former Soviet Union after Russia.

All its exports currently go through pipes controlled by Russia’s state-controlled gas giant OAO Gazprom, but President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov has appeared eager to develop alternate export routes.

Russia, China, the United States and western European countries have been locked in an increasingly tense rivalry for the energy resources of Central Asia.

Berdymukhamedov, after meeting yesterday with Austrian Economic Minister Martin Bartenstein, said Turkmenistan, “having multiple vectors in its energy policy and creating alternative export routes, including in the southern direction through the Caspian Sea, is prepared to deliver natural gas to European countries,” the Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper reported.

Further details were not available, but Berdymukhamedov appeared to be proposing a pipeline that would run to Azerbaijan, which is the starting point for a gas pipeline running to Turkey via Georgia.