Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Turkmenistanhas approved the procedures for trading exchange with foreign countries on the sale of oil and gas products.

This is envisaged in a decree issued by Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Trend Agency reported quoting the country's Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ministry.

The decree approved the composition of the Supervisory Board which monitors the sale of the oil and gas industry products to foreign countries.

This step is aimed at controlling the sale of crude oil, refined oil and gas products, petrochemical and gas chemical products, as well as regulation of the payments for sold products.

Turkmenistan's oil and gas industry institutions and businesses are instructed to conclude contracts and additional agreements on the sale of marketable products in the prescribed manner.

The Petroleum and Mineral Resources Turkmen Ministry is also supposed to submit a monthly report to the Cabinet of Ministers on the conclusion and implementation of the relevant contracts.

The report has to be based on the information of the State Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange, the State Customs Service of Turkmenistan, branch establishments and enterprises.

Turkmenistan is one of the key players in the energy market of the resource-rich Caspian region. The Central Asian state has the world's fourth largest natural gas reserves after Russia, Iran, and Qatar, and produces about 70-80 billion cubic meters of gas a year.

Turkmenistan intends to increase the production volume and export of natural gas, and diversify the routes of supply to major world markets as part of its energy strategy.

Under a program for oil and gas development, the country's annual natural gas production is planned to reach 250 billion cubic meters by 2030, mostly for export purposes.

Currently, domestic products, exported to more than 40 world countries, including Turkey, China, Russia, UAE, Iran, Germany, U.S., UK, Ukraine, Switzerland are sold on the exchange.

Turkmenistan produces about 10 million tons of oil annually, a significant part of which is processed in local refineries.

The country plans to bring the oil refining industry capacity to 15 million tons of oil per year in 2015, up to 20 million tons in 2020, up to 22 million tons in 2025, and up to 30 million tons in 2030.