Turkmenistan opens plant to ship power to Afghanistan

Turkmenistan’s economy suffered severely when Russia stopped buying its gas. Its diversification efforts include the May opening of a new port on the Caspian Sea, and it is building a pipeline to ship gas to new customers in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

By: AP | Turkmenistan | Published: September 9, 2018 10:57:57 am

Workers attend a ceremony to launch an upgraded power plant in southern Mary region, Turkmenistan. (Source: Reuters)

Turkmenistan has inaugurated a large gas-powered electricity plant that is expected to sell about 3 billion kilowatt-hours of power a year to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Saturday start of the plant near Mary in the Central Asian nation’s southeast was reported by state television.

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The Happy Dictator

Until 2006, Turkmenistan was run by a crazy dictator whose megalomania spawned a personality cult to rival that of Chairman Mao. This is the story of an unlikely desert republic with a grim reputation and a quite astonishing leader.

The $1.2 billion plant is part of Turkmenistan’s efforts to diversify away from the natural gas exports on which the country’s economy overwhelmingly depends.

Turkmenistan’s economy suffered severely when Russia stopped buying its gas. Its diversification efforts include the May opening of a new port on the Caspian Sea, and it is building a pipeline to ship gas to new customers in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.