Caspian Overview: Ashgabad Outlines Tapi Plans
A day after signing a $200mn-investment agreement on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (Tapi), Ashgabad announced on April 9 that the welding work on the first kilometre of the 214-km length of the Turkmen section of this pipeline was completed.
The giant Galkynysh gas field, with 27.4 trillion m³ of gas reserves, will supply the gas for the 1.42-metre diameter line.
The ministry said that drilling a new well to a depth of 4,800 metres has started in this field, and seven more have been planned. In total, taking into account the uncompleted wells, left from 2015, some nine wells are expected to become operational by the end of 2016, of which five would be completed this summer. For now the field produces 10bn m3/yr of gas, but Turkmenistan is preparing to increase the volume to 95bn m3/yr by 2020.
The average daily production of each well is projected to be between 1.7mn and 2mn m³, the ministry’s official website reported on April 6.
Over 774 km of Tapi will pass through Afghanistan and 826 km will stretch from Pakistan to Fazilka on the Indian border to transit 33bn m³/yr.
The Turkmen government announced on April 11 that the rate of growth natural and associated gas for the first quarter of 2016 stood at 100.4%, while export of gas was 103%. After halting Turkmen gas intake by Russia in early 2015, Ashgabad exports gas to China and Iran.
Azerbaijan accelerates Shah Deniz 2 development
Russia has also stopped gas import from Azerbaijan since early 2014, but the statistics indicate that the more Russia cut gas imports from Azerbaijan, the more Azeri gas was delivered to Turkey, one of Russia’s major gas clients.
Azerbaijan is preparing to start exporting gas to Turkey once Shah Deniz gas field’s stage 2 (SD 2) is on stream, expected by 2018.
BP's regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey Gordon Birrell announced on April 12 that BP together with its partners has invested $58bn on development of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli and Shah Deniz oil and gas fields over 20 years.
A source at state oil and gas company Socar told NGE on April 13 that some $16bn have been invested in Shah Deniz project. “About $7.427bn were invested in Shah Deniz project during 2015, of which $4.37bn went in the upstream sector and $1.1bn for the South Caucasus Pipeline Expansion (SCPX). In total, some $7.5bn from the mentioned $16bn were invested in SD2,” he said.
The development of SD2 is expected to cost $25bn, while about $3bn investment is expected to be needed for SCPX.
Azerbaijan desk