Turkmenistan completes East-West gas pipeline

Turkmenistan last week announced that it has completed construction of the strategic East-West gas pipeline linking its eastern  gas compressor station at  Shatlik to Belek on the Caspian Sea. With an annual capacity of 30 bcm, the 773km pipeline is seen as key to Turkmenistan’s ambitions to increase gas exports to  Europe.
“With the completion of the East-West pipeline, cooperation with our European partners reaches a new level,” President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said at the opening ceremony that was held at Belek on December 23. The East-West pipeline will take on added significance if the proposed Trans-Caspian pipeline, designed to transport gas along the floor of the Caspian and into the Trans Anatolian  Gas Pipeline (TANAP), ever gets built.