DUSHANBE, February 22, 2013, Asia-Plus — Total SA’s move into Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic known for growing melons and cotton, is aimed at producing natural gas for export to neighboring China, Bllomber.com reports.
Total’s venture with China National Petroleum Corp. and Tethys Petroleum Ltd., formed in December, is targeting an estimated 114 trillion cubic feet of gas at the Bokhtar license, twice Norway’s proven reserves, according to Tethys. Bokhtar shares geology with Turkmenistan’s South Yoloten field and gas- producing regions of Uzbekistan, said David Robson, executive chairman at Tethys. The two nations already pipe gas to China.
The Bokhtar permit is at the eastern end of the Amu Darya Basin, where “big discoveries” have been made in Turkmenistan, Michael Borrell, a senior vice president for Central Asia at Total, said on February 19 in London. The alliance with Beijing-based CNPC also brings with it a “large market outlet,” he said.
The successful development of gas in Tajikistan, which has little oil and gas output so far, would further hamper Russia’s ambitions to supply China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy. OAO Gazprom, Russia’s gas-export monopoly, has failed to reach a deal with Chinese customers after more than a decade of talks, while other former Soviet republics forged agreements.
The Bokhtar contract covers 35,000 square kilometers, an area larger than Belgium, and holds an estimated 27.5 billion barrels of oil and gas resources, according to Tethys, which already produces light oil from shallow wells in Tajikistan.
The partners plan to invest about $80 million to explore Bokhtar in the next two years and expect to sink the first well as soon as 2014, drilling to a possible depth of more than 6 kilometers. Tethys’s samples show deeper wells may either find “very light oil” or “very wet gas,” Robson said.
In the former Soviet Union, “Tajikistan was an area where they produced a lot of cotton, they produced water melons, but they didn’t really drill for oil and gas” deep underground, he said in an interview in London. “Now Tajikistan is an independent country, they want its resource to be developed.”
Should a discovery be made, the producers will pump gas to China through an existing pipeline or via a new link. They may also send fuel through the planned Trans-Afghan pipe as far as India, Robson said.
The Turkmen government renamed the South Yoloten gas field, the world’s second-largest, Galkynysh in 2011.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six “Supermajor” oil companies in the world. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and international crude oil and product trading. Total is also a large-scale chemicals manufacturer. The company has its head office in the Tour Total in the La Défense district in Courbevoie, West of Paris.
China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is a Chinese state-owned oil and gas corporation and the largest integrated energy company in the People”s Republic of China. It has its headquarters in Dongcheng District, Beijing. CNPC is the parent of public-listed PetroChina, a company created on November 5, 1999 as part of the restructuring of CNPC. In the restructuring, CNPC injected into PetroChina most of the assets and liabilities of CNPC relating to its exploration and production, refining and marketing, chemicals and natural gas businesses. CNPC and PetroChina develop overseas assets through a joint venture, CNPC Exploration & Development Company, which is 50% owned by PetroChina.
