Turkmenistan has given the green light to an engineering, procurement and construction contract for the fourth phase of development at its Galkynysh natural gas field which aims to increase the asset’s output by 10 billion cubic meters per annum.

According to official state newspaper Turkmenistan Altyn Asyr, the country’s President Serdar Berdymukhamedov last week authorised state-run gas company Turkmengaz to sign an EPC contract with China National Petroleum Corporation subsidiary CNPC Amu Darya Petroleum for new development wells and gas processing facilities at Galkynysh.

The move prioritises development of the fourth phase of the giant natural gas field ahead of significantly larger second and third phases as the country seeks to accelerate expansion of its export capacity.

Turkmengaz will fully finance the EPC contract, the signing of which was the final hurdle to be cleared in order for the development to go ahead.

Turkmenistan is a significant gas exporter and had the world’s fourth-largest proven natural gas reserves as of 2024, according to the World Bank. Revenues from its hydrocarbons sector have helped spur economic growth, helping position the Central Asian nation as an upper-middle-income country, according to the lender.

As Turkmenistan and Iraq are not connected by a pipeline, the deal also incorporated Iran as a swap agent, whereby Iran imports gas from Turkmenistan and exports gas from its own network to Iraq.

Irina Luryeva, a laboratory head at Turkmengaz’ Natural Gas Research Institute, told an industry conference in Ashgabat last year that the development area for the fourth phase of Galkynysh lies next to the acreage being developed under the first phase.

This assigned area is significantly smaller in size compared with those allocated for the second and third phases of the development.

In October, the first phase produced an average of 1.5 million cubic metres per day of gas from each of its 52 wells, Luryeva told the conference. She added that seven development wells were idle awaiting hook-up to the field’s grid, while development drilling was ongoing at a further eight holes.

CNPC is currently operating the first phase of Galkynysh. It reached a plateau target of over 30 Bcm per anum shortly after inauguration in 2013 because of the reservoir’s highly productive wells.

The pipeline was commissioned in 2009 with an initial annual capacity of 40 Bcm for exports from Turkmenistan, and about 10 Bcm per annum from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

While Galkynysh’s second phase — capable of producing 30 Bcm per annum — has been linked to the expansion of the Turkmenistan–China pipeline, Ashgabat hopes that its 33 Bcm per annum third phase will provide gas for another long-planned project, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, known as Tapi.

Tapi would have the same annual capacity as output from the third phase of Galkynysh.

While the Tapi project has yet to receive the go-ahead from stakeholder countries, Ashgabat had bankrolled the construction of the first stretch of the pipeline between Galkynysh and the Turkmen-Afghan border.