Turkmenistan expects $ 63 bn in oil industry investment

Turkmenistan expects $ 63 bn in investment in the oil industry to 2020, said Turkmen Oil and Gas Industry Minister Tachberdy Tagiyev at the opening of an international conference Turkmenistan's Oil and Gas in Ashgabat. Of that amount, $ 25.6 bn will be direct invested under production sharing agreements, Tagiyev said. Production sharing agreements are being negotiated with numerous companies, he said. Turkmenistan is offering 32 licenses for developing promising areas on the Caspian seabed, he said.
Five PSAs are already in force, two for onshore projects and three for areas in the Caspian Sea. Since these projects were launched in 1996, over $ 800 mm has been invested in the Turkmen oil industry; $ 180 mm is expected to be invested in 2003.

Foreign oil production in Turkmenistan could reach 40 %-50 % by 2020 compared with 8 % at present, Turkmenneft Chairman Saparmurat Aliyev said at an international oil and gas conference in Ashgabat. Turkmenistan increased oil production by 0.2 % year-on-year in the first eight months of the year to 6.456 mm tons. It plans to increase oil production by 50 % this year to 13.5 mm tons.
Experts estimate Turkmenistan's hydrocarbon resources at 45.44 bn tons of oil. An oil industry development program signed off by Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov provides for an output of 100 mm tons of oil and 240 bn cm of gas by 2020. Half of Turkmenistan's oil and gas will be extracted from deep structures by 2005, Aliyev said. Four wells that will reach between 5,200 and 6,500 meters are being drilled in western Turkmenistan at the Goturdepe, Akpatlavuk, Gundogar Cheleken, and Cheleken fields.

Turkmenistan also plans to boost refining capacity, to 32 mm tpy of oil by 2020, said Turkmenneftegaz State Trading Corporation President Ilyas Charyev. The country plans to upgrade the country's largest oil refineries, Turkmenbashi and Seidi, and construct two more oil refineries in the Akhal and Mary regions, which will produce 7 mm tpy of oil each.
About 5.7 mmtons of oil were refined at the country's oil refineries in 2002, which is 10 % more than the year before.