The Ministry of Energy of Uzbekistan announced details of an agreement on Russian gas supplies to Uzbekistan, which was signed on June 16 at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Along with the agreement, a roadmap was signed to prepare Uzbekistan’s gas transportation system for receiving and transporting Russian pipeline gas.
The gas purchase and sale agreement was signed by UzGasTrade and Gazprom Export for two years, with Uzbek Energy Minister Jurabek Mirzamakhmudov and Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller signing by proxy.
“The agreement has been developed entirely on commercial terms and is one of the measures to partially meet the annually growing demand for natural gas of the republic’s consumers, as well as to conduct the autumn-winter season without interruptions,” the statement said.
As a part of the agreement, starting October 1, gas supplies in the volume of 9 million cubic meters per day are expected, with an annual volume amounting to almost 2.8bn cu.m.
“The price of natural gas has been agreed based on market prices in the region, current prices in the country, as well as planned reforms to form prices based on market conditions,” the ministry specified.
“Taking into account that natural gas used to be supplied to Russia by transit through Kazakhstan via the Central Asia-Center main gas pipeline and now gas will be supplied in reverse mode to Uzbekistan, as well as the need to build new gas metering stations in Uzbekistan, the road map plans to complete the planned activities by September,” the report said.
In the gas transportation system of Uzbekistan, three units of gas-pumping equipment are planned to be replaced and overhaul and restoration work on 11 units of various gas-pumping equipment will be carried out. Additionally, 22 km of new main gas pipelines will be constructed and 56 km of gas pipelines will be repaired, the Energy Ministry said.
Earlier, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that the parties had agreed to supply about 6 billion cubic metres of gas per year or about 18 million cubic metres per day, with supply volumes specified each year.
