Uzbekistan, China to Agree Gas Transit Pipeline Route By 2008

TASHKENT. May 7 (Interfax) – Uzbekistan and China are to agree by the end of 2007 on the route of a gas pipeline to transit gas from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan, a source in government circles told Interfax.

“It is tentatively planned to start the gas pipeline at Alata (20 km from the border with Turkmenistan), and to use existing sections of the Bukhara-Ural gas pipeline, and then the pipeline will pass through the republic to intersect with the Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline, which is being designed,” the source said. He said that under the intergovernmental agreement a working group has been set up, which should develop a preliminary feasibility study, including the route of the gas pipeline, by the end of the year.

Uzbekistan and China last week signed an intergovernmental agreement on the principles for the construction and operation of a 530-km pipeline with a capacity of 30 bcm to transit Turkmen gas. The project includes the construction of two compressor stations.

It is not planned to export Uzbek gas through this pipeline.

In April 2006 in Beijing the Chinese and Turkmen governments signed an agreement to implement the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline project and to sell 30 bcm of Turkmen natural gas in China per year starting in 2009.

Kazakh Energy and Natural Resource Minister Baktykozha Izmukhambetov told Interfax that at the start of May Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov discussed the route of a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to China, at a meeting with the Turkmen side.

According to the Kazakh side, the best option to transit Turkmen gas would be to build a new gas pipeline through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, as the capacity of the existing pipeline from Bukhara to Almaty through Kyrgyzstan is not designed to transport a large volume of gas.

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