Firms from China, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates have won $9.7 billion worth of contracts to develop Turkmenistan's largest natural gas deposit, government sources in the Central Asian state said on Tuesday.
The decision marks the latest move by Turkmenistan, holder of the world's fourth-largest natural gas reserves, to diversify its energy industry away from Russia, its Soviet-era master and traditionally the main buyer of Turkmen gas.
The international pool of companies will drill and build gas plants at the South Iolotan deposit, which is ranked potentially as one of the biggest five natural gas deposits in the world.
Chinese state oil and gas firm CNPC, South Korea's LG International Corp and Hyundai Engineering Co and the UAE's Petrofac Emirates won the tender, a government source told Reuters on Tuesday.
Turkmenistan expects the South Iolotan deposit to produce around 30 billion cubic metres of gas a year, a second government official said.
"CNPC is obliged to produce up to 10 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas a year and will get 3.13 bcm for itself," the second source said.
