Turkmenistan's First Deputy Prime Minister Baymurad Khojamukhamedov has said his country is ready to provide some 40 billion cubic meters of natural gas to the European Union-backed Nabucco pipeline project.
Speaking at the "Oil and Gas Turkmenistan-2010" forum, Khojamukhamedov told some 700 delegates from 36 countries there would be an agreement on constructing a trans-Caspian pipeline along the bottom of the sea to transport Turkmen gas across the Caspian where it would be fed into pipelines linking up with the Nabucco pipeline.
Khojamukhamedov noted a key pipeline from gas fields in eastern Turkmenistan to the Caspian shore was already under construction.
Turkmenistan has often spoken about Nabucco as part of the country's diversification scheme but Ashgabat has not yet signed any contracts committing itself to the project.
Source: RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2010. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
