The announcement comes as Turkmenistan appears on the verge of sealing a new gas export agreement with Russia, which has in the past sold Central Asian energy supplies to Europe. Russia, China, Iran and Europe are all vying for access to Turkmen energy and influence over export routes.

"In our new contracts, we intend to envision conditions whereby buyers of our gas will not have the right to re-export it, so as to maintain the direct link between sellers-producers and transit countries, without involving middlemen," Baimuraid Khodzhamukhamedov told a conference of foreign investors.

Khodzhamukhamedov also said Turkmenistan plans to bring the vast South Yolotan and Osman gas field online by 2012.

An independent audit carried out last year by British surveyors Gaffney, Cline and Associates found that the field likely holds about 6 trillion cubic meters of gas, placing it among the world's five largest fields.

Once it is fully developed, it will potentially produce up to 100 billion cubic meters per year, Khodzhamukhamedov said.

Some international experts have expressed doubt that Turkmenistan can meet all its supply obligations, but the government insists there is enough gas.

Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov said earlier this week that Turkmen gas production will eventually reach 250 billion cubic meters per year, but he did not give a timeframe. The former Soviet republic currently produces 80 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually.

Khodzhamukhamedov said Turkmenistan would be able to export 200 billion cubic meters of gas once it reaches its production goal. He added that more than $14 billion will be invested in the country's energy sector in the coming years.

Another senior energy official, Yagshygeldy Kakayev, the head of the state agency for the management and use of hydrocarbon resources, said most of the growth in planned production will be made possible by the participation of foreign investors.

"We are actively negotiating with many of them at this moment, and new large companies will soon appear on the (Turkmen) market," he 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 1991 Soviet collapse.

But the isolated desert nation has gradually sought to expand its exports to markets such as China and Iran, as well as considering options for selling energy resources to the West.

In December, Turkmenistan is scheduled to begin pumping natural gas through two new pipelines to China and Iran.

China clinched a deal in June to buy 40 billion cubic meters from Turkmenistan annually starting next year.

A new 30-kilometer (19-mile) pipeline to neighboring Iran, which will complement a route that currently supplies around 8 billion cubic meters of gas annually, will have a capacity to deliver an additional 12.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

Western efforts to secure a new route for Turkmen gas exports are currently focused on the creation of a trans-Caspian pipeline. Under a European Union-backed plan, the route would feed into the Nabucco pipeline, which would run from the Caspian Sea via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and end in Austria.

Speaking at the investment forum Friday, a senior representative for Austria's OMV AG, central Europe's largest oil and gas company, said that the construction of Nabucco could act as a vital spur for developing energy transportation infrastructure in Turkmenistan.

"Once an early flow is there, and Nabucco is realized, the investment in the production and delivery of large additional volumes of Turkmen gas is significantly facilitated," said Wolfgang Sporrer, OMV's regional manager for the Caspian region.