Tomorrow, October 28, in Ashgabat, in the building of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Turkmenistan, the XXV International Conference "Oil and Gas of Turkmenistan-2020" (OGT-2020) will begin, timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the permanent neutrality of Turkmenistan.

The organizers of the forum are the State Concerns "Türkmengaz" and "Türkmennebit" in partnership with the economic society "Turkmen Forum" with the support of the British company GaffneyCline.

The peculiarity of the upcoming forum is that, in addition to the traditional format of the conference, an online broadcast will be organized in more than 70 countries of the world through the Zoom Professional platform. The same hybrid format will be used to organize meetings (both online and in person) with the leadership of the oil and gas sector of Turkmenistan.

According to the website of the conference organizers, Turkmenistan is the largest player in the oil and gas market in Asia. The country's hydrocarbon resources are estimated at more than 71 billion tons of oil equivalent, of which more than 20 billion tons of oil and more than 50 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. Thus, today Turkmenistan ranks fourth in the world in terms of proven natural gas reserves after Russia, Iran and Qatar.

The PRC is now the largest buyer of Turkmen natural gas. Three lines (A, B and C) of the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-China transnational gas pipeline, which was commissioned in December 2009, supply about 40 billion cubic meters of gas per year. With the commissioning of the fourth line D, the annual deliveries of Turkmen natural gas will be brought to the contractual 65 billion cubic meters.

Turkmenistan also resumed gas supplies to Russia.

In addition, Turkmenistan is building the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline. The construction of this pipeline with a total length of 1,814 kilometers and a capacity of 30 billion cubic meters. m per year began in December 2015. The project is supported by the United States, Russia and a number of other countries, as well as large international financial institutions, in particular, the Asian Development Bank.

Turkmenistan is actively developing its offshore fields in the Caspian Sea, as well as onshore fields in the Balkan region. Currently, a number of leading companies extract oil and gas from the contract areas of the Caspian Sea, including: ENI, Dragon Oil, Petronas and others.

Taking into account the recent agreements on the Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan is considering the possibility of supplying natural gas along the western direction to Europe. There are several options for implementing this project, which are currently being worked out in detail.

Turkmenistan is actively building up its large gas processing potential, which in the long term may become dominant in the country's economy over the export of hydrocarbons. A number of complexes have already been built and more are planned to increase the output of products with high added value. Plants for the production of urea fertilizers, high-density polyethylene and polypropylene and other facilities have already been commissioned.

Thus, a new plant for the production of gasoline from natural gas was put into operation on June 28, 2019 in Ovadandep of the Akhal velayat. The ultra-modern gas chemical complex, equipped with the latest equipment and advanced technologies from world manufacturers, is designed for the annual processing of 1 billion 785 million cubic meters of "blue fuel" and the production of 600 thousand tons of ECO-93 gasoline that meets the highest environmental requirements according to the Euro-5 standard, and also 12 thousand tons of refined diesel fuel and 115 thousand tons of liquefied gas.

The total cost of this investment project, implemented jointly by Turkmengaz State Corporation and the consortium of companies Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. (Japan) and "Rönesans Endüstri Tesisleri Inşaat Sanaýi ve Ticaret A.Ş." (Turkey), is almost 1.7 billion US dollars. It was financed by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

As President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov noted, it is necessary to continue work on deep processing of gas, creating new production facilities in this segment based on high technologies, using the best world experience and promoting our own developments.

Establishing a constructive dialogue with countries interested in developing effective cooperation with Turkmenistan is the main goal of Turkmenistan's foreign policy strategy, which is based on the principles of positive neutrality, openness and good neighborliness.

The holding of the international business forum OGT-2020 will contribute to the development and strengthening of partnerships with Turkmenistan in the oil and gas industry.