The Caspian region has been at the center of attention since Europe began seeking alternative routes to natural-gas resources. Turkmenistan has the potential to become an important gas exporter to Europe.
As a landlocked country, Turkmenistan until recently has relied on post-Soviet pipeline infrastructures. The Central Asian republic has been at the mercy of Moscow’s energy policy, which overlaps its foreign policy.
At the same time, the revenue from gas exports is an essential part of the Turkmen national budget. This prompted Ashgabat to look for energy partners bypassing Russian territories. It started to convey natural gas first to Iran and then to China. This gave Turkmenistan strong leverage vis-à-vis Moscow.
Ashgabat has not decided to export every gas molecule eastward, but, in jeopardizing its relations with Moscow, it expects more than empty pledges from Europe.
On the other hand, a simple question emerges: Does Europe really need alternative sources? The answer is in the hands of Gazprom and Russian policymakers.
Also available in:
Regions and themes
ISBN / ISSN
Share
Download the full analysis
This page contains only a summary of our work. If you would like to have access to all the information from our research on the subject, you can download the full version in PDF format.
Gas Exports in Turkmenistan
Related centers and programs
Discover our other research centers and programsFind out more
Discover all our analysesIndia’s Broken Power Economics : Addressing DISCOM Challenges
India’s electricity demand is rising at an impressive annual rate of 9%. From 2014 to 2023, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) surged from 1.95 trillion dollars ($) to $3.2 trillion (constant 2015 US$), and the nation is poised to maintain this upward trajectory, with projected growth rates exceeding 7% in 2024 and 2025. Correspondingly, peak power demand has soared from 136 gigawatts (GW) in 2014 to 243 GW in 2024, positioning India as the world’s third-largest energy consumer. In the past decade, the country has increased its power generation capacity by a remarkable 190 GW, pushing its total installed capacity beyond 400 GW.
The Troubled Reorganization of Critical Raw Materials Value Chains: An Assessment of European De-risking Policies
With the demand for critical raw materials set to, at a minimum, double by 2030 in the context of the current energy transition policies, the concentration of critical raw materials (CRM) supplies and, even more, of refining capacities in a handful of countries has become one of the paramount issues in international, bilateral and national discussions. China’s dominant position and successive export controls on critical raw materials (lately, germanium, gallium, rare earths processing technology, graphite, antimony) point to a trend of weaponizing critical dependencies.
The Aluminum Value Chain: A Key Component of Europe’s Strategic Autonomy and Carbon Neutrality
The United States of America (US), Canada and the European Union (EU) all now consider aluminum as strategic. This metal is indeed increasingly used, especially for the energy transition, be it for electric vehicles (EVs), electricity grids, wind turbines or solar panels.
The EU Green Deal External Impacts: Views from China, India, South Africa, Türkiye and the United States
Ahead of June 2024 European elections and against the backdrop of growing geopolitical and geoeconomic frictions, if not tensions, between the EU and some of its largest trade partners, not least based on the external impacts of the European Green Deal (EGD), Ifri chose to collect views and analyses from leading experts from China, India, South Africa, Türkiye and the United States of America (US) on how they assess bilateral relations in the field of energy and climate, and what issues and opportunities they envisage going forward.