Turkmenistan has made another attempt to secure the participation of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) in the country’s largest natural gas development, the Galkynysh group of fields.
Former Turkmenistan president and current chairman of the country's People’s Council, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, travelled to the United Arab Emirates at the end of the last week to witness the signing of a new memorandum of understanding between Turkmen state gas producer Turkmengaz and Adnoc, according to an official media report in Ashgabat.
The document calls for the two companies to join in attracting additional strategic partners for the third phase of the Galkynysh project.
Both companies have also agreed to consider the joint implementation of “projects related to the construction of gas pipeline infrastructure intended for the supply of natural gas” to the Caspian and other regions.
Turkmenistan has been painstakingly looking for foreign partners to continue with the Galkynysh long-term expansion as the country has struggled to secure alternative gas export routes.
Galkynysh is thought to harbour in-place geological reserves of more than 27 trillion cubic metres of gas. The project is currently in its first development phase, with tenders reported to be ongoing for a second phase.
Subsequent phases could boost production to 200 billion cubic metres per annum of gas, according to Turkmengaz.
Though Galkynysh is operated by Turkmengaz, the project has been dominated by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) since its 2008 start.
CNPC has been providing extensive drilling and technical assistance to the operator and is the offtaker of produced gas, which is exported from Galkynysh to China via a dedicated pipeline running across Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Three parallel pipelines can carry about 40 Bcm per annum of gas to China.
A fourth line, which CNPC's arm PetroChina started building in third quarter of 2022, will cross Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and bring the total export capacity to an estimated 65 Bcm per annum.
Berdymukhamedov was present at the February 2023 signing of a similar agreement between Turkmengaz and Adnoc that promised both parties would discuss the latter’s participation in the “next phases of the Galkynysh development”.
Lack of gas export routes
To increase the country’s gas export capacity, Turkmen authorities have been advancing plans for the Tapi pipeline to India, which would traverse Afghanistan and Pakistan, but international sanctions against the Taliban government have discouraged Turkmenistan from investing in the Afghani segment of the line.
Still, “it is expected that in the future the third phase of development of the giant Galkynysh field will become the source of the supply of gas through this pipeline”, the official report affirmed.
Turkmenistan has opted to normalise its previously strained relations with Azerbaijan as it seeks to discuss the construction of a cross-Caspian pipeline to Baku to enable its gas to flow to European markets.
A separate memo between Turkmengaz and Adnoc signed last week calls for both companies to “explore potential opportunities for scientific, technical and economic cooperation in the field of reducing methane emissions into the atmosphere”, according to the official report.
In 2022, methane leaks from gas developments in Turkmenistan contributed more to global warming than the entire carbon emissions of the United Kingdom, according to French environmental intelligence company Kayrros.
Adnoc said that ”it does not have any [more] comment” on the signed memos.
