The death last December of Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov set off a renewed feeding frenzy among Western energy companies eager to exploit Turkmenistan’s energy reserves.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said U.S.-Turkmen relations had turned a "new page" as the United States sent 15 delegations to Ashgabat to confer with new Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov. The June 2006 BP Statistical Review of World Energy estimated that Turkmenistan has 2.9 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves; the country produces roughly 60 billion cu m of natural gas annually, of which two-thirds is exported via Russia's Gazprom.

At issue for any development of Turkmen natural gas resources is the question in which direction should the pipelines run: north, south, east or west?

To the north, Russia's Transneft has the advantage of operating the country's sole current export line, the Central Asia-Center pipeline. Despite U.S. optimism, however, geography seems to dictate that Russia will retain a hammerlock over Turkmen natural gas exports for the foreseeable future.

Russia provides more than 40 percent of the European Union's natural gas needs, and Turkmen gas is essential to its efforts to supply the domestic and export market. As Russia has a monopoly over Turkmen gas exports, it seems unlikely it would be willing to let U.S. investment in to threaten its exclusivity.