Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov's press service said the Turkmen leader gave his permission during his meeting with the LUKoil CEO, amid strong international competition for access to the country's huge oil and gas reserves.
"During my meeting with the president I received the go ahead to start work on these fields. We hope that we can move forward on the project, we are fully ready to develop Turkmenistan's rich deposits," Alekperov said.
Turkmenistan possesses the world's fifth-largest reserves of natural gas and substantial oil resources, and two thirds of its natural gas goes through Russian energy giant Gazprom.
Last month, Russia clinched a deal with Turkmenistan and neighboring Kazakhstan to build a pipeline which will transport Turkmen gas to Russia and onto Europe, in opposition to Western efforts to build a similar pipeline bypassing Russia.
