No Problems Anticipated With Caspian Pipeline Project – Medvedev Aide

ASHGABAT. July 4 (Interfax) – Russia does not anticipate any problems with the Caspian gas pipeline project, Sergei Prikhodko, aide to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, told reporters in Ashgabat.

Russia should complete its pipeline agreement ratification procedures “in the very near future,” Prikhodko said.

“We do not foresee any problems with implementing this project: the necessary contractual and legal basis is in place, the required surveying work has been performed, and there are no problems with financing,” he said.

Turkmenistan’s potential participation in other pipeline projects – alternatives to the Caspian gas pipeline – did not come up during the talks in Ashgabat, Prikhodko said.

“The Nabucco project was never mentioned,” he said in a response to a follow-up question, and added that Nabucco is a project that exists only in the minds of European bureaucrats.

The Caspian gas pipeline, which will stretch from the Belek compressor station near Turkmenbashi in western Turkmenistan to the Alexandrov Gai gas metering station in Saratov region, involves reconstruction and upgrades to the existing Okarem-Beineu gas pipeline (from Turkmenistan’s southern Caspian coast to the Central Asia-Center pipeline) as well as the Central Asia-Center pipeline itself.

Turkmengaz has the job of upgrading existing or building new pipelines with capacity of 10 billion cubic meters, linking its Caspian area fields to the Karabogaz gas metering station at the Kazakh border. In Kazakhstan capacity on the pipeline must be upgraded to 20 billion cubic meters, in order to transit gas from Turkmenistan and to transport 10 billion cubic meters from Kazakh sources. Given the rising gas resource in those two countries, capacity on the pipeline may be increased further.

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