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Turkmenistan is the largest gas producer in the former Soviet Union after Russia. AP ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan (AP) — Energy-rich Turkmenistan could become a top supplier to fill a Western-backed natural gas pipeline aimed at reducing Europe's dependency on Russian gas, a top executive on the project said Nov. 19.

The planned €7.9 billion ($11.7 billion) Nabucco pipeline would run 3,300 kilometers from to Turkey through Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and end in Austria, circumventing Russia.

"We hope and expect Turkmenistan to be one of the main suppliers of gas to various markets through Nabucco," consortium Vice President Johann Gallistl told an investors conference in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat.

The remarks highlighted the crucial role that Western politicians and energy executives see the isolated Central Asian nation playing in ensuring European energy supplies over the coming decades.

Europe gets about 20 percent of its gas from Russia. A shutdown in January of Russian gas supplies to the European Union amid Moscow's price disputes with Ukraine has encouraged the EU to search for alternate routes.

Nabucco could be hindered, however, by territorial disputes over the Caspian Sea, which separates Turkmenistan from the pipelines that would feed into Nabucco.

Construction of a trans-Caspian pipeline could be indefinitely stalled by differences on how to divide the sea between five littoral nations, including Russia and Iran. Talks have dragged for years without an end in sight.

Gallistl said alternative options included moving gas through Iran, liquifying it, and then transporting it by sea. He also suggested it might be possible to deliver gas from offshore Turkmen fields to Azerbaijan, which lies across the Caspian from Turkmenistan.

Other potential suppliers for Nabucco could include Azerbaijan, Iran and Iraq, Gallistl said.

Turkmenistan is the largest gas producer in the former Soviet Union after Russia, which has had a lock on most of the reclusive desert nation's gas exports since the Soviet collapse in 1991. Turkmenistan estimates its total reserves at more than 20 trillion cubic meters (26 trillion cubic yards), but international experts have questioned that figure.