China will lend energy-rich Turkmenistan $3 billion to develop its vast South Yolotan natural gas field, Turkmen state media reported Saturday. Work on a 4,300-mile (7,000-kilometer) pipeline from Turkmenistan to China with the capacity to deliver 52 billion cubic yards (40 billion cubic meters) of gas per year is expected to be finished by the end of the year, Associated Press reported. An audit last year by British company Gaffney, Cline and Associates found that the Yolotan field near the Afghan border likely holds 7.85 trillion cubic yards (6 trillion cubic meters) of gas, making it one of the five largest deposits in the world. «The deposits at Southern Yolotan alone, if it produces 50 billion cubic meters of gas annually, could provide enough gas to supply any state for 100 years,» Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov told a Cabinet meeting Friday.
