Japanese Sumitomo Corporation plays a key role in supporting and developing gas-fired power generation in Turkmenistan’s electricity sector. Sergey Lobanov, General Director of Sumitomo Corporation Central Eurasia, spoke about the company’s activities in the country at the International Conference “Construction, Industry, Chemical and Power Sectors of Turkmenistan” (CIET 2026) in Ashgabat.
One of Sumitomo’s flagship projects in Turkmenistan was the construction and commissioning of a major power facility: in 2021, Sumitomo commissioned a 432-megawatt simple-cycle gas turbine power plant at the Lebap State Power Plant.
The project was implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Energy of Turkmenistan and partners, including GE Steam Power, IHI Corporation, and Rönesans Holding, which acted as the EPC contractor.
According to Lobanov, the power plant has been operating at almost 100% load, ensuring stable domestic energy supply and supporting electricity exports to neighboring Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
“Our current activities and future role would be to continue maintenance of this power plant. Already, we performed combustion inspection two years ago, one year ago. Currently, turbine inspection of Unit 1 is being implemented,” Lobanov said.
According to the Sumitomo representative, future plans also include a major inspection of the gas turbines to ensure a stable and reliable power supply.
“Yesterday, we signed a partnership agreement with the Ministry to keep all this cooperation,” the speaker added.
However, as Lobanov stated, the main future target for the Japanese corporation will be the conversion of the simple-cycle power plant into combined-cycle operation. This will make power generation significantly more efficient and free up additional gas resources to be used for gas-derived processes domestically as well as for export. /// nCa, 4 November 2026