Japan, Turkmenistan sign deals worth $18 bil

"Don't always blame the others. "

Right. But when "the others" break agreements with everyone on the planet, it is usually a safe bet to blame "the others" when agreements go wrong. I think the Russians have reneged a couple of times on the Sakhalin natural gas operations. Shell took a bath there. Let me just break it down and say that if Japan can get natural gas from somebody else, it should. Or if Russia wants to build a pipeline and take the risk itself to supply its customers, that would be cool too. That won't happen though. The Russian strategy is usually to have someone else build something, then to create a pretense justifying theft.

There is a REASON that all these "great plans" floated by Russians get ignored on a regular basis.

And as far as the EU goes, you know Poland is hustling to build an LNG terminal worth billions of dollars rather than be subjected to Russia's tender mercies and pipeline policies again. Same for Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. It seems that the people who know Russia best are the ones running for the exits rather than wanting to be good customers.

"Turkmenistan, which has a population of more than five million people, sits atop the world’s fourth-largest reserves of natural gas."

What happens when the gas runs out?

5er

Don't always blame the others. If its not through Hokkaido then Siberian gas will come by Korea one day.

The EU gets Russian gas since decades but then they have diplomats who accept that wars change borders.

Japan scores a hat-trick of deals-with-despots in less than three weeks.

1) According to Human Rights Watch:

"Turkmenistan remains one of the world’s most repressive countries. The country is virtually closed to independent scrutiny, media and religious freedoms are subject to draconian restrictions, and human rights defenders and other activists face the constant threat of government reprisal". President Berdymukhamedov promotes a personality cult in which he, his relatives, and associates enjoy unlimited power and total control over all aspects of public life.

Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkmenistan

The Japanese Wikipedia page on Turkmenistan https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/トルクメニスタン has no mention of the human rights abuses listed on the English Wikipedia page.

Why is there no mention of Turkmenistan's human rights abuses on the Japanese Wikipedia page? The Japanese people deserve to know that the Japanese government is doing business with the autocratic despot leader of Turkmenistan.

2) On October 8 Waseda University president Kaoru Kamata awarded Turkey's despotic president Erdogan an honourary doctorate in law.

Source https://www.waseda.jp/top/news/33317

Waseda University's website reported the news with no mention of Erdogan's human rights abuses in Turkey.

News of the award was not reported anywhere in the Japanese media.

Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey#Human_rights

3) On October 6 Waseda University president Kaoru Kamata established an agreement with the University of Tehran, which is under the control of the Political Section of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Source https://www.waseda.jp/top/en-news/33542

Iran is well known for its human abuses.

In Iran the Bahá'í Faith, which is said to be the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran,[291] is not officially recognized, and has been persecuted during its existence in Iran since the 19th century. Since the 1979 Revolution, the persecution of Bahais has increased with executions, the denial of civil rights and liberties, and the denial of access to higher education and employment.

Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran

dbsaiya

Already, there are some pipelines to take gas from Kazakhstan to China under construction. It would be easy, probably, to build a feeder pipeline into that. In that case, Japan and Turkmen will just take the money.

But there is a lot of activity to take pipelines south to India/Pakistan/Bangladesh and then sell the gas there or set up a terminal to send it to Japan as LNG. More likely India will consume it, which would get them a little less dependent on coal. Either way, it is a win.

Everybody talks big about pipelines, though. It seems unlikely that really long pipelines to Korea and Japan are going to be feasible.

Jandworld

Japan has been burned by Russia too many times to fall for a Sakhalin/Hokkaido pipeline swindle. It might happen, but Japan has too many options and Russia has been the second least stable energy partner in recent history. Iran wins the prize, of course, but things are looking up.

Wonder how he's going to get the gas out of there, it's a land locked country surrounded by some nice neighbors. Pipeline? Security for the pipeline? Revenue to pay for all this?

Not hearing nearly enough of Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov in the news lately.

Maybe better to manage a pipline from Sakhalin to Hokkaido.

Good on Japanese leadership for being active in this part of the world and competing with China and Russia for resources!