Page 50 - bne_Magazine_March_2018

50 I Eurasia bne March 2018
The Turkmen gas pipeline to Europe that will never be
Ashgabat has so far seen the consent of Azerbaijan as sufficient for building the Caspian Sea pipeline, despite Russia and Iran’s opposition to the project, officially on environmental grounds. Azerbaijan has expressed a readiness to use its territory, infrastructure and transit opportunities to implement the project.
Recent developments have inspired hope in some analysts that the perpetual reaffirmation stalemate might be coming to an end.
In a commentary published by RFE/
RL last month, Robert M. Cutler, senior researcher at Carleton University’s Cen- tre of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies and fellow at the Canadian Energy Research Institute, argued that the Trump administration's new Nation- al Security Strategy is a promising development in terms of bringing the TCGP closer to reality. Though the new strategy never explicitly, or even implic- itly, refers to Turkmenistan, there are grounds to believe the strategy’s aims are in line with supporting the TCGP.
For example, the strategy refers to Russia’s so-called energy diplomacy, and vows
to help US allies build resilience against coercion via energy. “Russia... projects its influence economically, through the con- trol of key energy and other infrastructure throughout parts of Europe and Central Asia,” the new strategy says.
The document also mentions the impor- tance of Central Asia as the US is seeking “Central Asian states that are resilient against domination by rival powers.”
Kanat Shaku in Almaty
The trans-Caspian gas pipeline (TCGP) has been under discussion for more than a decade. The plan envisages a 300km pipeline running from Turkmenistan's Caspian coast
to Baku, where it would link to the Southern Gas Corridor, a network of pipelines seeking to deliver Azerbaijani gas to Europe via Turkey.
The EU has long backed the ambitious project, as the pipeline would allow European countries to cut their dependence on Russia for gas – Turkmenistan’s estimated reserves far exceed 17 trillion cubic metres (cm) of natural gas, putting the country behind only Iran, Russia and Qatar. Yet the chances of the pipeline ever being built remain extremely slim.
Once every year or so, Turkmen and European leaders meet to discuss the pipeline and reaffirm its (faraway) prospects, the latest such meeting hav-
www.bne.eu
ing taken place in July 2017, when Turk- menistan and Hungary discussed the potential to start Turkmen natural gas deliveries to Europe during a meeting of the Intergovernmental Turkmen- Hungarian Commission for Economic Cooperation hosted in Ashgabat. But
no real progress has been made, mainly due to the unresolved legal status of
“The pipeline would allow European countries to cut their dependence on Russia for gas”
the inland sea log-jamming Caspian gas exports for years, with Russia and Iran highly unlikely to offer their blessing to any project which would reduce their current control over Turkmen gas flows.
Positive developments
Yet as it pursues hopes of exporting 30-40bn cm to Europe annually,
The statement is made largely in the context of terrorism, but Russia, as the regional overseer in Central Asia, has not been seeing eye-to-eye on every issue with Turkmenistan recently. Ashgabat also upholds a policy of political neutrality in the international arena, which might put Turkmenistan at a further distance from Russia than