Turkmenistan has agreed to supply 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas to the European Union each year - something that should cut the energy-hungry bloc's dependence on gas from Russia. "The president [Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov] gave us assurances that 10 bcm will be set aside for Europe in addition to possibilities in new fields to be tendered," EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told the Financial Times on Sunday (13 April). Ms Ferrero-Waldner described the deal as "a very important first step" in energy cooperation, although she acknowledged the amount agreed by the two sides does not represent a "vast quantity". The former Soviet Republic in Central Asia has the world's fifth largest reserves of natural gas and substantial deposits of oil. It annually produces 60 billion cubic metres of natural gas, but two-thirds are exported to Russia's state-run Gazprom.
This is part of the ongoing propaganda effort to make it look like Nabucco can happen. This one is really laughable. This is not even about allocating gas volumes from existing production, but from undeveloped fields - so not only the pipeline does not exist, but the gas does not either (nor does the buyer).
There was an article about this in the FT yesterday, and even they had trouble hiding their skepticism about this announcement. I didn't even bother post it. This announcement deserves to be ignored, rather than commented ;-) In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
