Azerbaijan, Baku, September 7 / Trend , A.Badalova /
It is not worthy to expect progress in the development of cooperation between Venezuela and Turkmenistan in oil and gas sector in the near future, said Pavel Sorokin, analyst of Unicredit Securities Investment Company, which is part of UniCredit Group international financial group.
"I do not think we will see some progress in this direction in the near future," Sorokin told Trend in a telephone conversation.
Last week Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez made the first official visit to in Ashgabat. He became the first from the heads of the Latin American countries, who visited Turkmenistan.
During talks with Turkmen President Gurbangulu Berdimuhamedov, Chavez suggested to begin cooperation in trade and economic sphere and cooperation in oil and gas sector.
Sorokin skeptically approaches the Latin American leader's visit to Turkmenistan. According to him, suggesting the countries that are located so far from each other is nothing.
Today Turkmenistan is a quite closed country, and if it opens an access to its energy resources, then respectively, only for the Western investors, said Russian analyst.
"Turkmenistan is of interest for many Western companies, which have great experience, said Sorokin. - There are also Russian companies that are interested in this country."
Turkmenistan, which has rich hydrocarbon resources, is attracting today more and more attention. According to the data provided by BP, the proved gas reserves in the country as of 1 January 2009 were estimated at 7.94 trillion cubic meters. Thus, the country has the fourth largest gas reserves after Russia, Iran and Qatar. Turkmenistan has one of the largest fields in the world - South Yolotan, the reserves of which in the past year ranged from 4 to 14 trillion cubic meters, according to British Gaffney Cline research firm.
Today Turkmenistan is regarded as one of the potential suppliers of gas for the Nabucco pipeline, of which construction is scheduled for 2011. After a disagreement with Russia, which together with Iran acted as the main buyer of Turkmen gas, Turkmenistan began to consider alternatives to export its hydrocarbons, including the Nabucco project.
During Chavez's visit to the country, Turkmenistan was also invited to participate in the creation of so-called "gas OPEC".
According to Sorokin, taking into account the difficulty of the gas market, compared with the oil, it is not possible to establish such a cartel with the efforts of several countries.
"Today, in gas transportation issues, Turkmenistan is related with Russia, and in the future will be linked with China. Today Venezuela is also not in the most advantageous position," said Sorokin.
In May 2001 in Tehran at a meeting of energy ministers of Algeria, Brunei, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Qatar, Oman, Russia and Turkmenistan, was established a Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), which in recent years was called "gas OPEC" . Later, other countries joined the forum.
Official status to the forum was given in December 2008.
In June 2009, in Qatar at a meeting of the forum, was approved its Executive Board and approved its budget for the second half of 2009 in amount of $2.2 million.
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