The country’s hydrocarbon resources are estimated at over 71bn toe, that is over 20bn tonnes of oil and over 50tn m³ of natural gas. Given these figures, Turkmenistan holds the world’s fourth-largest proven natural gas reserves after Russia, Iran and Qatar.

Currently, Turkmenistan’s largest customer is the People’s Republic of China. Turkmenistan supplies over 30bn m³/y of natural gas to China through the three lines (A, B and C) of the Central Asia Gas Pipeline system. Upon completion of the fourth D line, the annual Turkmen natural gas supply will reach a contractual 65bn m³/y. Turkmenistan also supplies gas to Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia and Uzbekistan, and recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to supply 9bn m³/y of natural gas to Iraq.

Turkmenistan holds the world’s fourth-largest proven natural gas reserves after Russia, Iran and Qatar.

Speaking at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, Turkmenistan’s President Serdar Berdimuhamedov announced the country’s accession to the Global Methane Pledge. In so doing, Turkmenistan joined over 150 countries working collectively to reduce global methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030.

Infrastructure, contractors and prospects
Within the country, state corporation Turkmengas is responsible for producing, preparing, transporting and processing natural gas. The industrial development of the world’s largest onshore gas field, Galkynysh, is underway. Its reserves, together with the Yashlar and Garakel fields, are estimated at over 27tn m³ of gas. Previously, three gas processing facilities with a total capacity of 30bn m³ were commissioned here.

Recently, Japan’s Mitsubishi carried out a preliminary technical design of a plant to produce 10 bn m³ of sales of gas per year, which is planned to be built as part of Galkynysh’s next stage of development.

In 2015, the East-West gas pipeline was implemented, connecting all the country’s gas pipelines into a single system. Thanks to this, reverse gas deliveries from large natural gas fields, including Dovletabat and Galkynysh, located in the east of Turkmenistan, to other regions of the country became possible. In addition, the East-West gas pipeline can be used to export Turkmen energy westwards to international markets through the Caspian Sea.

Another project of regional importance is the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project. The 1,853 km pipeline will deliver up to 33bn m³/y of natural gas from the Galkynysh gas field to three off-take points in Afghanistan, three offtake points in Pakistan, and a final off-take point at the Pakistan-India border to supply the Indian market.

The state concern Turkmennebit develops oil fields and produces from over 30 projects, mainly in western Turkmenistan. It works on oil well overhauls in cooperation with international partners including Yug Neftegaz (Singapore), Tatneft (Russia) and Sinopec (China).

Currently, leading international energy companies including CNPC, Dragon Oil, Petronas, Mitro and Eni are producing oil and gas from contractual offshore and onshore territories in the country.

In 2021, the cooperation between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan reached a major milestone with the signing of an MoU for the joint exploration and development of hydrocarbon resources at the Dostluk field in the Caspian Sea. Successful development of this field will allow the supply of natural gas westwards to Europe. Hydrocarbon reserves in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea are estimated at 12.1bn tonnes of oil and condensate and 6.1tn m³ of gas.

Fertile ground for gas products 
In parallel with natural gas exports by pipeline, Turkmenistan is currently focusing on hydrocarbon processing, which may dominate the country’s economy in the long term. Several gas chemical facilities have been commissioned recently, and several more are planned to manufacture high-added-value goods for global markets.

They include the gas-to-gasoline (GTG) plant in the Ovadan-Depe, the area in the north of Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat. The GTG plant, the only one in the world, produces 600,000 tonnes of gasoline from natural gas (via methanol syngas), based on technology developed by Denmark’s Haldor Topsoe. The project consortium leader was Kawasaki of Japan. Additionally, in the eastern city of Mary, Kawasaki built a fertiliser plant with a capacity of 640,000 t/y of urea.

The Turkmenbashi complex of oil refineries processes oil and gas condensate and various oil and petrochemical products. The Seydi oil refinery in the country’s east consists of three main production facilities. Strategic projects are also underway to modernise the Seyidi and Turkmenbashy oil refineries.

In addition to projects to develop hydrocarbons, Turkmenistan is actively developing its renewable energy sector. An example is a 10 MW hybrid solar-wind power plant under construction near the Altyn Asyr Lake, financed by the Abu Dhabi Development Fund.

The Turkmen Energy Investment Forum (TEIF 2024) will be held in Paris on 24–25 April 2024. More info: www.ogt-turkmenistan.com

• Find out how Caspian states other than Turkmenistan are mitigating climate change challenges by adopting more efficient water management practices and greener energy technologies.
• Further reading: ‘Prospects for Caspian brighten as Europe rejects Russian gas’. Tim Crawford reports on the ambitions of suppliers in Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan as Europe pushes to end its reliance on Russian gas.