Oxford Energy Podcast – Central Asian Gas
In this podcast, David Ledesma discusses the prospects for Central Asian natural gas production and exports in the 2020s with Simon Pirani, Senior Research Fellow at OIES, who has just published a research paper on this subject. Central Asian exports to China were 47 bcm in 2018, compared with 16 bcm to Russia. Exports to China are down this year due to Covid-19 but will remain the main focus for the Central Asian producers, Pirani argues; the 55 bcm Central Asia-China pipeline, the largest such corridor constructed in recent decades, may be expanded to carry 85 bcm. China’s relationship with Turkmenistan is an issue to watch. Greater inward investment, mostly by Asian companies; expanding petrochemicals capacity; and, in Kazakhstan, trade-offs between producing gas and reinjecting it to boost oil output, are other factors that will shape the sector in this decade.
