today price is much cheaper than deciding several years later. and nothing prevent North Korea getting it. its better to have redundancy. its not like this enough as China still buying LNG.
Uzbekistan was exporter now it is importing. considering the trends in population. i dont think there will be much surplus in system and without long term contracts it will get expensive. it will be cheaper for Turkeminstan to sell to Afghanistan than cross it over several countries. North South is Soft Power Project.
The EU imported 150bcm of gas from Russia with +445 million people a couple years ago. Central Asia has a population of +90 million. You say it is cheaper for Turkmenistan to sell it to Afghanistan. Then why are they building an 4th pipeline to China? Why are they building 110bcm pipeline capacity to China when it is cheaper to sell to Afghanistan? Are they incompetent? Wasting billions in pipeline construction when they should be selling it to Afghanistan.