After years of isolation, Turkmenistan has been host to hundreds of official delegations from the world’s great powers, as Europe, Russia, China, and India pursue energy security with an eye toward the country's gas deposits. President Berdymukhamedov has forsaken at least some of his predecessor’s inward focus, in favor of a “multi-vector” natural resource strategy. The strategy relies on multiple hydrocarbon export routes, and the various gas importers each have a route in mind. Key pipeline proposals include the Caspian coastal pipeline, the Central Asia-China pipeline, the TAPI and IPI pipelines, and the Nabucco and Trans-Caspian pipelines.
Central asia-china pipeline

Only the Central Asia-China project has broken ground; construction began in the summer of 2008. The 1,818 km, $30 billion pipeline is intended to export 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan into Xinjiang, China. The pipeline would connect with the West-to-East natural gas pipeline and extend into Shanghai. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is requesting a $2.5 billion loan from the China Development Bank to fund construction for the segment in Uzbekistan. This pipeline deal, like others in the region, challenges western predominance in the energy market.