/ world today news/ China is counting on Turkmenistan to expand natural gas supplies as it cuts Australian energy imports at the same time.
Wrapping up his meeting with his Turkmen counterpart Rashid Meredov and the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Serdar Berdimuhamedov in Xi’an on Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said natural gas cooperation is the “ballast stone” of bilateral relations.
“China sees Turkmenistan as a long-term natural gas cooperation partner and is ready to formulate a comprehensive cooperation plan with the Turkmen country with a forward-looking perspective,” Wang Yi said, according to a statement from China’s foreign ministry on Monday evening.
The ministry said China and Turkmenistan agreed to “further consolidate and expand cooperation in the field of natural gas and establish a comprehensive strategic partnership in the industrial chain in the energy sector.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi says China and Turkmenistan need to create new “engines” for cooperation beyond issues such as resources, trade, investment, connectivity and technology. Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China
Wang Yi also said that China and Turkmenistan should create new “engines” for cooperation beyond resources such as trade, investment, connectivity and technology.
China aims to further reduce energy imports from Australia as bilateral relations continue to deteriorate.
At least two of China’s small LNG importers have been instructed by government officials not to make new purchases from Australia next year, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
Diversifying gas and oil imports to ensure energy security is also a cornerstone of the country’s latest five-year development plan, which runs until 2025.
Turkmenistan is China’s largest supplier of natural gas, and the Turkmenistan-China Gas Pipeline, also known as the Central Asia-China Gas Pipeline, is a signature project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive global infrastructure development project .
Since the pipeline opened in 2009, China has imported more than 240 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Turkmenistan, supplies that account for more than 70 percent of China’s total imports, the State Grid Corporation of the People’s Republic said in a December report.
But the relationship has not always been smooth.
In 2018, China and Turkmenistan were embroiled in a dispute over the price and supply of the resource, prompting Turkmenistan to drastically reduce flows to China.
But levels gradually recovered over the next year.
According to industry data, Australia accounted for about 46% of China’s LNG imports last year.
“As tensions with Australia escalate, China needs to increase energy imports from Central Asia to ensure its overall supply,” said Sun Qi, an international affairs specialist at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
Meanwhile, in a phone call with his Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for joint efforts to raise the strategic partnership between the two countries to new levels by expanding cooperation in various sectors, including aerospace and vaccines.
Translation: SM
#China #replaces #Australian #gas #Turkmenistan #gas
