The European Union, keen to lessen its dependence on Russia for energy supplies, expects to start receiving natural gas from Turkmenistan by 2019, European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said in an interview to Reuters.
“We have good mutual understanding. For Turkmenistan it is very important to diversify its export options, while for the EU it is very important to diversify its imports,” Sefcovic told Reuters in the Turkmen capital Ashgabat.
“Europe expects supplies of Turkmen gas to begin by 2019,” he said, speaking in Russian.
Turkmenistan, a Central Asian nation with the world’s fourth-largest reserves of natural gas, is keen to diversify exports of the fuel away from Russia which will cut its imports to 4 billion cubic metres this year from 11 bcm in 2014.
Sefcovic is overseeing the EU’s push for an energy union, a single market for power and gas based on better connections between member states and aimed at curbing Russia’s dominant position, particularly in the gas market.
Visiting Ashgabat on Friday, he met Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz, Azerbaijan’s Energy Minister Natiq Aliyev, Turkmen Deputy Prime Minister Baymurad Hojamukhamedov and Yagshygeldy Kakayev, who heads Turkmenistan’s hydrocarbon resources agency.
“In this format we discussed all aspects referring to the trans-Caspian pipeline,” Sefcovic said. “We made a big step in the strategic direction.”
“Now there is a political decision that Turkmenistan will become part of this project and will feed the European direction,” Sefcovic said.
Turkmen officials said in March that “active” negotiations were under way to supply Europe with 10 to 30 bcm of gas per year.
