Construction of the Uzbekistan section of the fourth branch of the Central Asia (Turkmenistan) – China gas pipeline will begin in mid-2015, reported a source close to the project.
The basic technical project with a preliminary cost of $800 million has been worked out.
The length of the line, which will connect the active gas pipeline infrastructure on the territory of Uzbekistan with the section in Tajikistan, which is under construction, will be about 200 km.
The fourth branch of the Central Asia-China gas pipeline with a total length of about 1000 km will pass through the territory of five countries, including Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and China, will allow increasing its total carrying capacity up to 85 billion cub.m.
The agreement to build and operate the Uzbekistan-China gas pipeline with the carrying capacity of 30 billion cub.m. of gas a year was signed in 2013.
In 2014 the national holding company Uzbekneftegas and CNPC signed the agreement on the intention to create the second joint venture to build and operate the gas pipeline. The necessity of creation of the second JV is connected with the issues of the project funding.
Asia Trans Gas JV was created by Uzbekneftegas and CNPC to build and operate the Middle Asia-China gas pipeline with the route passing from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to China.
In December 2014 Asia Trans Gas completed construction of the third branch of the gas pipeline to China with a total amount of $2.2 billion. The length of the third branch of the Uzbek section of the gas pipeline is 530 km and its target capacity is 25 billion cub.m. of gas a year. The third branch of the gas pipeline is expected to be filled with gas in quarter 1, 2015.
