Friday, June 08, 2012 -
China and Turkmenistan agreed Wednesday to increase Turkmen natural gas exports to the energy-hungry East Asian republic.
China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), builder and operator of the lengthy east-west gas pipeline, said Thursday it signed the deal with Turkmenistan’s state-run energy major Turkmengaz, the China Daily news agency reported.
CNPC is slated to buy 65 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Turkmen gas per year.
Earlier this week, CNPC said the two companies had pumped a total of 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas from Turkmenistan since the transnational pipeline was inaugurated in 2009. Chinese imports surged three-fold in 2011 over the previous year.
China consumes five times that amount annually.
Turkmengaz’s share of the total volume of supplies shipped to China during the period amounted to 19.3 bcm, with the remainder coming from CNPC’s subsidiary in Turkmenistan.
China is expected to more than double its current gas consumption in the coming five years, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA has forecast that China will consume one-quarter of the world’s demand for gas over the coming five-year period.