SHELL SET TO PULL-OUT OF TURKMENISTAN

Tuesday, 18 March 2003

SHELL SET TO PULL-OUT OF TURKMENISTAN

Published in News Digest

font size decrease font size increase font size
Print
Email

By empty (3/18/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell will reduce to a minimum its presence Turkmenistan from April 1, an official of the Central Asian country\'s oil and gas industry ministry said on Tuesday. \"Shell feels there is a lack of prospects for oil and gas projects in Turkmenistan. Just a few people will remain at its Ashkhabad office to observe developments in the oil and gas sectors,\" an official of the oil and gas industry ministry said on condition of anonymity. Shell is among a number of Western energy companies that have scaled back cooperation with the increasingly isolated government of Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov. Turkmenistan has immense gas reserves but lacks pipelines to export its energy wealth to international markets and currently transports almost all of its gas to or via Russia. Shell recently dropped plans to build a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Turkey via the Caspian Sea, Iran and Turkey after large gas reserves were found further West in Azerbaijan. US oil company ExxonMobil announced it was ceasing operations in Turkmenistan last year. But some neighbours continue to be interested in cooperation. In December Turkmenistan signed a three-way accord with Afghanistan and Pakistan to build a 1,500-kilometre $2-billion trans-Afghan gas pipeline to the Indian Ocean. Last October Denmark\'s Maersk Oil signed an agreement giving it the right to prospect for hydrocarbons in Turkmenistan\'s section of the Caspian. (AFP)

Read 2258 times

More in this category: « DRAWN-OUT IRAQ WAR COULD DELAY CASPIAN PIPE CONSTRUCTION BUSH THANKS UZBEKISTAN\'S PRESIDENT FOR SUPPORT AGAINST TERRORISM »

Visit also

Staff Publications

Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.

Analysis Svante E. Cornell, "Promise and Peril in the Caucasus," AFPC Insights, March 30, 2023.

Oped S. Frederick Starr, Putin's War In Ukraine and the Crimean War), 19fourtyfive, January 2, 2023

Oped S. Frederick Starr, Russia Needs Its Own Charles de Gaulle, Foreign Policy, July 21, 2022.

Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Rethinking Greater Central Asia: American and Western Stakes in the Region and How to Advance Them, June 2022

Oped Svante E. Cornell & Albert Barro, With referendum, Kazakh President pushes for reforms, Euractiv, June 3, 2022.

Oped Svante E. Cornell Russia's Southern Neighbors Take a Stand, The Hill, May 6, 2022.

Silk Road Paper Johan Engvall, Between Bandits and Bureaucrats: 30 Years of Parliamentary Development in Kyrgyzstan, January 2022.

Oped Svante E. Cornell, No, The War in Ukraine is not about NATO, The Hill, March 9, 2022.

Analysis Svante E. Cornell, Kazakhstan’s Crisis Calls for a Central Asia Policy Reboot, The National Interest, January 34, 2022.

Book S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell, Strong and Unique: Three Decades of U.S.-Kazakhstan Partnership, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, December 2021.

Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, S. Frederick Starr & Albert Barro, Political and Economic Reforms in Kazakhstan Under President Tokayev, November 2021.