On August 29, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov visited the Lebap velayat (region) to establish a new etrap (district) and launch the implementation of the grand Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline project. In addition to the latest reforms in the country, establishing a new district with all the modern facilities, and launching the long-time negotiated pipeline project provide prospects to raise productivity in this gas-rich part of Turkmenistan.

Creating new districts and adopting policies directed at improving the welfare in the remote areas, boroughs, and other rural areas of Turkmenistan have taken up particular concern in President Berdimuhammedov’s presidential agenda. Within this framework, the project of a new etrap with all the up-to-date facilities has recently been launched in the northern region of Dashoguz velayat. Similarly, the construction of modern administrative buildings, schools, hospitals, cultural centers and apartment houses is underway in Esenguly etrap, the country’s most impoverished district located in the area of the Balkan velayat with the richest oil and gas deposits. Speaking of the newly created district on the right bank of the Amu-Darya river, Berdimuhammedov signed a resolution on developing 15,000 extra hectares of virgin land and vowed to provide all the necessary means for its implementation. It is expected that the development of extra arable land and favorable conditions for livestock farming in this region could, by implication, create new job opportunities and attract people to settle.

Launching the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline along the right bank of the Amu-Darya river marked another significant event of the president’s visit to this riverbank region. After the official opening ceremony of the newly created district, Berdimuhammedov met with Mr. Chen Demin, the Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission of China. Together with Mr. Demin, President Berdimuhammedov laid the symbolic foundation to the pipeline. Reaffirming the interests of the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Chen Demin assured the prompt pace of the pipeline’s construction and exploration of new oil and gas fields as well. It was noted that Turkmenistan, in its turn, would provide all the necessary conditions favorable for exploratory and extraction operations by Chinese firms in the eastern regions of Turkmenistan.

The construction of this long-term gas pipeline project was agreed at a bilateral meeting of the first president of Turkmenistan, Saparmyrad Niyazov, and the Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, Hu Jintao, in Beijing on April 3, 2006.  The pace of the negotiations took a new phase with president Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov’ trip to China in July 2007. According to the terms of the bilateral contract, the Turkmenistan-China pipeline will carry 30 billion cubic meters of blue fuel to China for 30 years, starting from 2009. It is noteworthy that China is the second country after Russia that is striking a long-term deal with Turkmenistan. Recently, the exploratory operations of the commission of the Chinese and Turkmen specialists found several new locations of gas condensates, and were able to estimate gas deposits in the amount of 1.3 trillion cubic meters. The pipeline, roughly 7,000 km in total length, will cross the territory of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. According to official sources, 188 km will go through Turkmenistan’s territory, 530 km through Uzbekistan, 1,300 km over Kazakhstan and more than 4,500 through China’s territory.

Speaking on the process of developing the infrastructures and opening up new trade routes from the right side of the Amu-Darya river at the border with Uzbekistan, Berdimuhammedov also called on expediting the construction of a bridge being built by Ukrainian firms over the Amu-Darya river. It is also noteworthy that the Lebap region’s Seidi refinery, one of the two giant oil refineries in Turkmenistan, is about to undergo a significant modernization and reconstruction process.  In May, Turkmenistan committed to open up a new gas pipeline to Russia, reconstruct the existing Central Asia-Center pipeline, and has for some time been negotiating to implement the Trans-Afghan Pipeline that will take the Turkmen blue fuel up to India. Addressing the foreign media outlets regarding the country’s gas production, President Berdimuhammedov said that Turkmenistan will pursue every possible way to diversify its gas export routes, and that the country possesses enough resources for this.