Ashgabat has natural gas reserves of 17.5 trillion cubic meters, ranking 4th after Russia, Iran and Qatar. Today it can no longer sell it to Moscow under the agreed conditions, which could open up new possibilities for its Uzbek neighbors who live in the cold. But it would require a political choice that is far from simple.
Tashkent () – Uzbekistan has been suffering from a shortage of gas and electricity for a quarter of a century, a problem that is especially acute during the heating season, when the population is forced to use stoves and improvised systems to avoid freezing inside their homes. . Now, Turkmenistan’s refusal to sell gas to Russia may open new possibilities for the Uzbeks’ thirst for fuel, giving them access to cheaper sources than Russian ones, but this requires a similar distancing from Moscow by Tashkent, an option policy that is anything but simple, even before an economic necessity.
Already in October, the president of the state-owned company Turkmengaz, Maksat Babaev, announced that the five-year contract with the Russians, in force since 2019, would not be renewed, justifying it with the need to diversify exports, increasing their volume and prices. In fact, in the renewal negotiations with Moscow, the Russians had not accepted the increases demanded by Ashgabat.
Turkmenistan has natural gas reserves of 17.5 trillion cubic meters, which places it in 4th position after Russia, Iran and Qatar. The country extracts 63.2 billion cubic meters of gas every year, thanks to the activities not only of Turkmengaz, but also of China National Petroleum and Malaysia’s PetroNas. Of these, 31.5 billion M3 are destined for national needs, and about 32-35 billion are sold to China. Since 2003, there was an agreement with the Russian Gazprom of 50,000 million annually, later reduced to 30,000 million M3, but in reality Russia has never purchased such quantities of Turkmen gas, limiting itself to 10,000 million in 2021, up to 4,700 million last year .
While the Turkmens do not sell gas according to the agreements to Russia, their Uzbek neighbors live in the cold and without gas. Every year, from late autumn to spring, dozens of Uzbeks die from carbon monoxide poisoning, which is used to heat houses by various improvised means. Last week, the administration of the Uzbek state-owned company Khududgazminot reported that since the beginning of 2024, 74 cases of similar incidents have been recorded, 82 people have died and another 80 are in serious condition.
Uzbekistan also has its own gas extraction production, with reserves of up to 1.8 billion M3, ranking 17th in the world, and like Turkmenistan has for many years sold gas to Russia at very low prices, but in recent Five years the level of Uzbek gas extraction has begun to decline more and more. According to the local statistics institute, between January and September 2024, 33,480 million M3 of natural gas were extracted, 4.8% less than the previous year, in the face of the growing demand of the population.
As Energy Minister Žurabek Mirzamakhmudov explained at the St. Petersburg Gas Forum last November, “in Uzbekistan, natural population growth is estimated at one million people a year, and the economy has grown by 6%. , with increasing needs for energy resources, at least 10% to 15% more each year. Tashkent currently buys its gas from Russia, since September it has also started importing it from Turkmenistan, and all experts advise focusing on Ashgabat, which offers the best economic conditions, leaving the Russians on the sidelines.
As former Energy Minister Anvamirzo Khusainov recalls, «the border between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan extends for more than 1,500 kilometers, and Turkmen gas passes through gas pipelines located on our territory to reach China or Russia… it only makes “There is a lack of clear political will, our market is already prepared for this solution.” It is not easy to free ourselves from centuries-old dependence on Moscow, but the cold winter could definitively push us to free ourselves once and for all.
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