TOKYO: Japan and Turkmenistan signed deals worth over $18 billion on a package of projects in the energy-rich central Asian nation, which has become an important supplier of natural gas to China. Turkmenistan, a reclusive nation of 5.5 million, holds the world’s fourth-largest reserves of natural gas.
Since independence in 1991, it has launched ambitious projects to process the commodity at home and find new export routes. Japanese companies are already actively involved in large-scale projects in Turkmenistan, building plants to process natural gas into fertilisers, ethylene, polyethylene and polypropylene, as well as into liquid fuel.
China has supplanted Russia as the main buyer of Turkmen gas in recent years, annually importing 30-35 billion cubic metres of the fuel. Moscow angered Ashgabat this year with plans to cut its imports to 4 bcm from 11 bcm in 2014. Next-door Iran also imports small volumes of Turkmen gas.