Uzbekistan begins building its stretch of gas pipeline

TASHKENT, July 2 (Itar-Tass) - Uzbekistan has begun laying its own
stretch of the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline. The construction begins at the settlement of Saet in the Bukhara region.

An agreement on the construction and use of Uzbekistan's segment of the pipeline was signed in 2007.
An Uzbek-Chinese joint venture Asia Trans Gaz was set up in Uzbekistan.
The cost of the Uzbek stretch of the gas pipeline is over two billion
dollars.

Two branches with a length of 500 kilometers are to be built.
One will be put in operation in December of 2009 and the other in 2011.
It is also planned to build three gas compression stations and other
infrastructure facilities.

The total cost of the 1,818-kilometer long gas pipeline
Turkmenistan-China is about 7 billion dollars.
The two countries reached the agreement on building it in 2006.

In 2007, the state-owned company Turkmengaz and CNPC signed an
agreement on purchase-sale of natural gas.
Turkmenistan took the obligation to supply 30 billion cubic meters of
gas to China every year.

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said last week that the
gas transportation to China via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan would begin in
2009.

The 188 kilometer-long Turkmen stretch of the gas pipeline will be
built by the Russian company Stroitransgaz. The cost of the project is 395
million euros.