The United States is seeking ways to allow Turkmen gas and oil to be exported, but not to Iran, a US special advisor said here. Steven Mann, Special Advisor to US President and Secretary of State for Caspian Energy Diplomacy, told a press conference on Saturday October 20 that the prospects for Turkmenistan to export its oil and gas were "limited," and that Washington would seek new solutions which bypassed Iran.
The US official met Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov the previous day. Turkmenistan has exported several billion cubic meters of gas to Iran in recent years, to the chagrin of Washington which is seeking to limit Tehran's influence in the Caspian Sea region.
States bordering the sea have been at loggerheads over how to divide up the inland sea, whose oil and gas reserves are believed to be the third largest in the world, after the Gulf and Siberia. Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan all support maintaining the status quo in the Caspian, under which each country's share of the sea corresponds roughly to their national boundaries.
But Tehran, backed by Turkmenistan, wants the division renegotiated to give each of the littoral states an equal share of the sea, an arrangement that would put at least two Azeri oil fields inside Iranian territory.
Washington has in the past attempted to convince Turkmenistan to build a gas pipeline to Turkey via the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan and Georgia, a route that would also avoid Russia. But the trans-Caspian pipeline project, which would be more than 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) long and cost some $2 billion has been hampered by various problems and events, notably the discovery two years ago of the Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan, which is closer to Turkey.
Mann said it would be a "tragedy" if the central Asian nation did not go ahead with the pipeline. He said Niyazov is interested in exporting gas north to Russia, east towards China and south to Pakistan and India. Mann's Ashkhabad visit revived US-Turkmenistan dialogue on energy resources after a two-year gap. With known gas reserves of more than 3,000 billion square meters, Turkmenistan is the world's fourth biggest natural gas producer. — (AFP, Ashkhabad)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
