Uzbekistan, Tashkent, March 16 / Trend D. Azizov /
Uzbekistan plans to draw loans from international financial institutions to implement the project to build the Ustyurt Gas-Chemical Complex on the Surgil Field.
The issues for involving financial institutions to finance this project were recently discussed in Tashkent within a banking forum organized by the Uzbek Reconstruction and Development Foundation, Uzbekneftegaz and JV Uz-Kor GasChemical.
The representatives of over 20 international financial institutions and commercial banks attended the forum.
He did not specify the amount of funds that is expected to be drawn to finance the project.
In February 2008, Uzbekneftegaz and South Korean Consortium created a joint venture UzKorGasChemical for construction of the Ustyurt Gas-Chemical Complex on the base of Surgil deposit. The consortium included Kogass, Lotte Daesan Petrochemical Corp. (in 2009, it was replaced with Honam Petrochemical), LG International Corp., SK Gas and STX Energy.
In 2008, Samsung Engineering (South Korea) and Uzbekneftegaz's UzLITIneftegaz developed a preliminary feasibility study of the technological part of the project, which envisaged construction of the complex with the capacity of 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas and production of 400,000 polyethylene and 100,000 tons of polypropylene.
In early October 2009, it was reported that the commissioning of the Ustyurt complex could be postponed until 2014 due to lack of an accurate assessment of reserves at the Surgil field and the rise in price of the project by nearly 40 percent over the past year and a half.
The project will be financed with foreign investments and loans attracted by Korean companies at the volume of $1.694 billion, Uzbekneftegaz's own resources of $1.21 billion, and the loan of Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan - $350 million.
The Ustyurt oil and gas region is one of the largest in Uzbekistan and the least studied. The promising area of land is 105,100 square kilometers. Prospective gas resources are estimated at 1,685 trillion cubic meters, liquid hydrocarbons at 1, 720 billion tons.
About 30 oil and gas companies, including such large ones as Karazhanbas, North Buzachi, Kalampas, recently opened.
Uzbekistan occupies the second place among CIS countries after Russia for natural gas production. Every year, about 60 billion cubic meters of gas are produced in the country.
Uzbekneftegaz is a monopoly operator in the oil and gas industry of Uzbekistan. It was established in 1998 and comprises 6 joint stock companies.