The 200-kilometer route links reserves in the barren Karakum desert to a compressor station that feeds into the Soviet-built Central-Asia-Center pipeline, which carries gas to Russia.

The route has been created despite Moscow’s flagging interest in buying Turkmen gas. Although itself rich in gas, Russia has traditionally bought cheaper Central Asian energy supplies while selling its own reserves to European customers at much higher prices.

Last year, Russia abruptly suspended its imports from Turkmenistan amid mutual accusations over responsibility for a pipeline blast in April. Deliveries resumed in January 2010, but at much smaller quantities.

State-owned Turkmengaz says that Russian gas imports are expected to reach about 10 billion cubic meters this year, down from the annual 40 billion cubic meters it bought previously.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is set to arrive in Turkmenistan for a two-day visit Wednesday in a sign that relations between the two former Soviet nations may be on the mend.

“The new pipeline in the Karakum Desert, which will increase the supply of Turkmen gas to Russia, is a vivid example of mutually beneficial cooperation between Turkmenistan and Russia,” President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov said at a Cabinet meeting Friday.

Next year’s schedule for gas deliveries is expected to be discussed during Medvedev’s visit.

Russia, which once had a lock on the bulk of Central Asian gas supplies, has seen its dominant position undermined by the recent construction of new pipelines to China and Iran.

Turkmen gas deliveries to China through a pipeline completed in 2009 are expected to reach 6 billion cubic meters this year, with supplies increasing incrementally every year until they reach 40 billion cubic meters in 2015. Turkmen gas supplies to Iran currently stand at about 14 billion cubic meters a year.

Russia appeared to have cornered the market for Central Asian gas exports in 2007, when it sealed a deal to build a new pipeline along the Caspian coast to further boost supplies. But that project has fallen by the wayside as Moscow’s readiness to buy Turkmenistan’s increasingly expensive gas has waned.