OREANDA-NEWS. September 20, 2011. A gas compressor station which will collect and supply associated gas from offshore deposits in the Turkmen sector and coastal zone of the Caspian Sea to the gas transportation system of the country was put into operation in the vicinities of the littoral town Hazar.

This event marks a new significant step to successfully promote Turkmenistan’s energy strategy with increasing oil and gas production and export including through extensive development of abundant hydrocarbon resources of the Caspian region as a major aspect.

The Hazar gas compressor station supplied with state-of-the-art equipment with the total capacity of 2 billion cubic metres a year meet international standards. It is full computer-aided and autonomic. All the processes at the station are managed and monitored distantly and centrally from the apparatus room with the help of electronic equipment and specialized software.

The station has three turbocompressor units, two operational units and one backup units, which ‘compress’ gas boosting its pressure from 2.5 to 25 atmospheres. Also, the complex has the fuel treatment and purification units using advanced technologies, gas turbine and diesel power plants, transformer substation, desalination unit with water storage reservoirs, machine shop, maintenance shop and other facilities.

High-precision instrumentation equipment keeps records of raw materials supplied to the station and ‘blue fuel’ transported to the gas-main pipeline. The compliance of fuel with the standards is monitored in the laboratory located in the administrative building, where the favourable working conditions are created for the personnel. There are a canteen, medical room and exchange in the territory of the station.

This large-scale investment project was implemented by the Turkmennebit State Concern in collaboration with the Ukrainian partners – specialists of M. I. Frunze Sumy Machine Building Reaserach and Production Association, who had built a number of oil and gas production infrastructure in our country.

As was reported, the construction of the Hazar gas compressor station enabled to fulfil an important task – to ensure industrial use of associated gas, in particular gas extracted from wells in the offshore deposits. Gas will be supplied to the Central Asia-Centre-III transnational gas pipeline as well as used to intensify oil extraction activities, in particular from gaslift wells in the Goturdepe field.

Putting the gas compressor station into operation will contribute to enhancing the potential of the Turkmen oil and gas industry and open up new opportunities for gas exports to world energy markets.

Managers and specialists of the oil and gas ministries and departments, representatives of the administration and public organisations of the maritime region attended the ceremony of putting the station into operation. The address of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov congratulating builders and oil and specialists’ of the Hazar station, oil and gas industry workers on the putting into operation of a new oil and gas infrastructure facility.

“Turkmenistan, which has huge hydrocarbon reserves, is recognized as being one of the world energy powers. Today we don’t confine themselves to efficient use of our natural resources to improve the welfare of our people but use them for the benefit of the whole mankind and address global energy issues,” said the Turkmen leader.

Speaking at the conference participants expressed ardent gratitude to President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov for his tireless efforts to modernise the fuel and energy sector that had reached a qualitatively new level in the epoch of new Revival.

It was noted that task-oriented investment allocated by the state for technical re-equipment and modernisation of oil and gas enterprises, expansion of exploration work, geophysical research and drilling operations, enhancement of operational efficiency of deposits and acceleration of commercial development of oil and gas bearing areas have enabled to significantly strengthened the material base of the sector, increase the volume of hydrocarbon production and refining and broaden a range of petroleum products.

Having put forward the international initiatives to build an effective framework for global energy security, Turkmenistan takes specific steps to fill these initiatives with a practical content. Putting the transnational gas pipelines such as the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline and the Turkmenistan-Iran gas pipeline, the first production of natural gas on the deposits in the Caspian Sea, construction of the East-West gas pipeline, which will connect all largest gas fields of the country to the one gas transportation system and other ambitious projects are the vivid illustration of successful implementation of Turkmenistan’s energy strategy.