Azernews.Az

By Kamila Aliyeva

Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and CEO of PJSC LUKOIL Vagit Alekperov, who arrived in Tashkent for a working visit, discussed the implementation of current projects and preparation for prospective projects in the oil and gas sector, the Uzbek national news agency (UzA) reported.

Particular attention was paid to new projects aimed at deep processing of produced natural gas, as well as cooperation in the field of training highly qualified personnel for the industry.

Uzbekistan’s president noted the dynamically developing cooperation with LUKOIL in the oil and gas sphere.

Currently, the geological study of the Ustyurt block and the development of oil and gas condensate fields of the South-West Gissar are being carried out jointly.

Work is underway to develop the fields of the Kandym group with the construction of a modern gas processing complex, which will allow processing more than 8 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year in the near future.

To date, more than 90 percent of delivery of the equipment has been completed, about 8,000 people are employed in the construction of the GPP and most of them are local specialists.

The first stage of the plant is planned to be commissioned in late 2017. Total volume of investments in this project is estimated to be $3.3 billion in the first phase.

Vagit Alekperov, for his part, expressed readiness for further development of full-scale bilateral cooperation in the oil and gas sector.

Uzbekistan is rich in hydrocarbon resources, and about 60 percent of its territory possesses potential oil and gas reserves. The projected reserves of hydrocarbons stand at about 10 billion tons of standard fuel, while prospective ones amount to about 2 billion tons.

There are five oil and gas regions - Ustyurt, Bukhara-Khiva, Surkhandarya, Hissar, and Fergana - and three promising ones -Khorezm, Middle Syr Darya and Zarafshan- in Uzbekistan.

Russia's LUKOIL and Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) are among the most heavily invested companies in Uzbekistan's oil and natural gas industries.

LUKOIL is operating in Uzbekistan on the implementation of two projects on the basis of production sharing agreements (PSA) – Kandym-Hauzak-Shady and developing fields of the South-West Gissar.

The total volume of gas produced by the company in Uzbekistan exceeded 40 billion cubic meters. As part of the first two projects, LUKOIL plans to produce up to 18 billion cubic meters of gas by 2020, and raise the volume of investments up to $8 billion.

As of today, total volume of LUKOIL investments in joint projects in Uzbekistan’s oil and gas sector amounts to $6.3 billion.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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