President of Uzbekistan: Drilled deeper and discovered a giant gas field

A giant gas field has been discovered in Uzbekistan. This was stated by the President of the country Shavkat Mirziyoyev during a visit to Namangan region.

"Our country has huge reserves of minerals. Previously, exploration work in the oil and gas industry was carried out only at a depth of 2.5−3 thousand meters. This year, for the first time in the history of our industry, A giant gas field was discovered in Ustyurt, drilled with a well 6.5 thousand meters deep," the head of Uzbekistan said.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev did not provide details about the deposit and its reserves.

The day before, in September, Uzbekneftegaz reported on preparations for the start of joint exploration work at Ustyurt with Azerbaijan's Socar.

"The project, implemented jointly with SOCAR, involves attracting investments in the amount of about $ 2 billion and will be implemented in three stages. Within the framework of the agreement, it is planned to carry out large-scale seismic and geological exploration work. According to forecasts, deposits with reserves of up to 100 million tons of oil and 35 billion cubic meters of natural gas can be discovered at six investment blocks of the Ustyurt oil and gas region," writes UPL.uz .

As EADaily reported, in October 2023, Uzbekistan began importing Russian gas under a two-year agreement. Gazprom's contractual obligations involve the supply of 2.8 billion cubic meters per year or 9 million cubic meters per day. However, in Tashkent plans to increase imports of Russian fuel four times. This is stated in the government decree "On measures to implement the investment program of the Republic of Uzbekistan for the first quarter of 2024."

According to the program of modernization of the main gas pipeline system in order to increase the volume of natural gas imports from the north, it is planned to increase purchases to 32 million cubic meters per day — 11.7 billion cubic meters per year.

The demand for gas imports from Uzbekistan is understandable. According to the country's Industrial Production Statistics Agency, in 2023, gas production in the country decreased by almost 10% or 5 billion cubic meters compared to 2022, to 46.7 billion cubic meters. And compared to the indicators of 2019 — by almost a quarter or 14 billion cubic meters. This situation has already led to the fact that Uzbekistan cannot fulfill its contractual obligations to supply gas to China.