Caspian natural gas exports may more than triple in the next decade, allowing consumers in Europe and China to diversify supply, the International Energy Agency said.

Producers including Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan will export almost 100 billion cubic meters of gas in 2020, compared with less than 30 billion last year, the Paris-based agency said in its World Energy Outlook today.

Caspian producers already ship gas to China through the TransAsian pipeline, which runs from Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan plans to ship 5 billion cubic meters to China this year, increasing to 14 billion cubic meters annually from 2014, the country’s vice-minister of oil and gas, Asset Magauov, said at a conference in New York today.

The Caspian’s “export potential may be much higher than we forecast,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist, said at a press conference in London, saying there is a lot of potential for the region to cut domestic energy consumption.

Caspian gas is also a possible source for the OMV AG-led Nabucco pipeline through Turkey, which Europe says would allow it to lessen its dependence on Russian fuel.

Oil output from the Caspian will also rise, with Kazakhstan ranked fourth in the world for production growth in volume terms between now and 2035, the IEA said. Kazakhstan plans to export about 12 million tons of crude to China next year, or about 240,000 barrels a day, Magauov said. That’s about 15 percent of its current crude output.

The Caspian region’s crude output will peak at about 5.4 million barrels a day between 2025 or 2030, equivalent to about half of Russia’s current production.

Kazakh gas production will rise to 60 billion cubic meters in 2015, Magauov said. That’s up from 32.2 billion cubic meters last year, according to BP Plc’s Statistical Review of World Energy.

Source: Bloomberg