Turkmenistan pledges gas for EU's Nabucco pipeline

BBC.
Gas-rich Turkmenistan is a key player in Central Asia's energy politics
A struggle for Central Asia's energy Nord Stream construction starts Europe gas pipeline deal agreed Turkmenistan has pledged to supply natural gas for the planned Nabucco pipeline - a major project that should allow EU countries to rely less on Russian energy in future.

Turkmenistan says it will have up to 40bn cubic metres (1,412bn cu ft) of spare gas annually, "so European countries need not worry".

The pledge came from Turkmen Deputy PM Baymyrad Hojamuhamedov on Friday.

Uncertainty about Nabucco's gas supply has been delaying the project.

The 3,300km (2,046-mile) pipeline is expected to pump up to 31bn cubic metres of gas annually from the Caspian region and Middle East across Turkey and into Europe.

In July 2009 Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria signed an agreement to build the long-planned pipeline.

Turkmenistan's announcement came at an international energy conference in the ex-Soviet republic's capital, Ashgabat.

New export markets

Mr Hojamuhamedov said Turkmenistan had support from its Caspian neighbours for building a pipeline under the Caspian Sea, to connect up to the Nabucco pipeline.

He said delivering gas to Europe was part of Turkmenistan's plan to diversify its export markets. It already sells gas to Iran, China and Russia.

Nabucco is expected to cost about 7.9bn euros (£6.7bn) and is projected to come on stream by the end of 2014, Reuters news agency reports.

Russia is forging ahead with South Stream, a pipeline that will run from southern Russia under the Black Sea to Bulgaria. It is seen as a major rival to Nabucco.

The EU relies on Russia for a quarter of its total gas supplies. Seven countries in the 27-nation bloc are almost totally dependent on Russian gas.

Book of the Spirit

I am in the middle of (actually on the second volume!) going through Great Turkmenbashi's Magnum Opus. It is called Ruhnama or "Book of the Spirit" and I have to admit it is the best book ever written by a crazed dictator. I have read them all - I went through Das Capital (abridged), and Little Red Book by Mao, and (in my youth) through Che's Diaries. I read Qaddafi's Green Book too. But they are all dwarfed by Asiatic splendor of this one. Most of those other books are full practical advice of how to run a dictatorship or start a revolution. Not so Niyazov, who claimed divinity - a rare thing in our day and age. Without breaking away from Islam - he send himself (by a jumbled and incoherent style of the book I assume it was him who wrote, or at least dictated it) on an interesting spiritual journey through mysticism and Islamic heterodoxy. His poetry is childish but sincere in its attempts to deify Turkmen nation and its spirit. Good thing it did not work.

It starts most strongly in the prophetic vein:

This book, written with the help of inspiration sent to my heart by the God who created this wonderful universe I wrote this book containing the nation spirit,
its morality and historical immortality. My dear Turkmen nation, in order to urge your soul and mind to fulfill these duties an to raise a strong faith in your heart for self-confidence, and to be a support to you, I have written this book, Ruhnama. You are the meaning of my life and source of my strength.