Gas exports to support Turkmenistan’s economic growth

By  Trend

Turkmenistan’s real GDP growth is expected to slow to 5.8 percent in 2019 from an estimate of 6.2 percent in 2018, Trend reports citing Fitch Solutions Macro Research (a unit of Fitch Group).

"Factors underpinning our 2019 outlook include a still-poor business environment and fiscal consolidation, even though we believe that gas

exports to China will continue to provide major support to growth," said the report released by Fitch Solutions.

The company believes that Turkmenistan’s growth will likely decelerate modestly thanks to continued support and tailwind from natural gas exports to China.

"We believe that the Central Asian country’s overseas gas shipments are likely to benefit from China’s continued commitment to lowering environmental pollution over the coming years, through increasing its reliance on natural gas and reducing the usage of coal."

Indeed, China’s gas demand is booming, with imports of natural gas rising by 31.9 percent year-on-year in 2018, picking up from 26.9 percent in 2017, according to Fitch Solutions.

"Turkmenistan is endowed with abundant natural resources of oil and gas deposits (with gas reserves estimated to be the world’s fourth largest at around 10 percent of global reserves ), which will enable it to benefit from this trend," said the report.

Fitch Solutions pointed out that indeed, China remains a big importer of Turkmenistan’s natural gas, with the Central Asian nation supplying almost 4 percent of China’s overall gas imports along the 3,666 km Central Asia-China Pipeline.

Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline with a length of 1800 kilometers is the world's largest transboundary gas pipeline.

The Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline runs through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. It is planned to build the fourth line of the gas pipeline - through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, with commissioning of which the gas export volume will increase.

In addition, it's planned to increase the gas supply volume to 65 bcm a year, which is more than 1.5 times than the current figures.