The Chinese company CNPC Chuanging Drilling Engineering Company Ltd has won an international tender for the construction of new wells in the super-giant Galkynysh gas field.  Vice-Chairman Shakhym Abdrakhmanov reported this to the President of Turkmenistan at a government meeting held last Friday via video link.

 According to the Vice-Chairman, the State Concern «Turkmengas» had announced an international tender for the provision of services for the construction of new wells at the Galkynysh field, following which the proposal of the Chinese company CNPC Chuanging Drilling Engineering Company Ltd was recognized as the most profitable.

 The project was designed for 30 months, in accordance with the agreement signed in 2007, payment for the company's services would be carried out at the expense of the annual supply of 17 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China for three years.

 Having listened to the report, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov noted that work should be intensified on the accelerated industrial development and construction of new hydrocarbon fields, including the Galkynysh field, which was one of the largest in the world in terms of natural gas reserves.  In this area, good experience was accumulated with the leading companies of the PRC, which had repeatedly acted as partners of our country in the implementation of important projects in the energy sector, as the President said.

 “A clear example of the success of bilateral cooperation is the construction of the Turkmenistan-China transnational gas pipeline, through which tens of millions of cubic meters of» blue fuel «are supplied to the Celestial Empire every day,” the Turkmen leader said.

 Having pointed to the importance of widespread use of modern technologies in drilling new wells and developing the Galkynysh field, which was assigned a significant role in increasing the supply of Turkmen gas for export, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov addressed a number of specific instructions to the Vice-Chairman.

 Earlier, at the Galkynysh field located in the Mary region, Hyundai Engineering CO.  LTD (Republic of Korea), CNPC (China) and Petrofac International LLC (United Arab Emirates) had built and operated three large gas processing complexes for desulfurization with a total capacity of 30 billion cubic meters of commercial gas per year.

 The independent British company Gafney, Cline & Associates has increased the estimate of the reserves of the Galkynysh field from 26.2 trillion cubic meters to 27.4 trillion cubic meters of natural gas.

 In mid-June this year, Shakhym Abdrakhmanov said that Turkmenistan had fully returned the borrowed funds to China, allocated earlier for the industrial development of Galkynysh.

 At present, gas from the Galkynysh field is supplied to the domestic market and exported to the Celestial Empire via the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline.  In addition, gas from the Galkynysh field has been identified as a resource base for supplies via the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline with a capacity of 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year.  It is assumed that the gas resources of «Galkynysh» can also be used for supplies in the European direction.