Uzbekistan, Tashkent, May 19 / Trend D. Azizov /
Uzbek-Korean joint venture, Uz-KorGasChemical, signed on Saturday with commercial banks of Asia, Europe and Uzbekistan documents of debt financing to raise a loan of $2.54 billion for the construction of Ustyurt gas and chemical complex (GCC) in the Surgil field (Ustyurt region).
Trend correspondent, who attended the signing ceremony, reports the construction of Ustyurt GCC is the largest project to be implemented in the oil and gas sector of Uzbekistan.
Debt financing includes direct loans from Eximbank of Korea, China's State Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan and the National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity of Uzbekistan totaling $1.175 billion.
In addition, nine commercial banks of Europe and Asia will provide $1.365 billion under the cover of Korean and European export credit agencies (ECA).
Lenders under the cover of the ECA are the Korea Finance Corporation, Korea Development Bank, ING Bank, Bayern LB, Credit Suisse, KfW, Nordea, SEK, and Siemens Bank.
The signed documents provide for the provision of financing with limited recourse to project sponsors and the maturity of the loan for 16 years.
As previously reported, in 2008 Uzbekneftegaz National Holding Company (NHC) and Korean consortium formed JV Uz-KorGasChemical for the construction of Ustyurt GCC worth $ 3.9 billion.
In the charter capital of joint venture 50 percent is owned by Uzbekneftegaz and 50 percent - Korean consortium consisting of Korea Gas Corporation KOGAS, Honam Petrochemical and STX Energy.
In accordance with the feasibility study, GCC will annually process 4.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas and produce up to four billion cubic meters of marketable gas, 400,000 tons of polyethylene, 100,000 tons of polypropylene, and about 100,000 tons of pyrolysis gasoline.
Last year, JV Uz-Kor GasChemical started construction of Ustyurt MCC. Completion of construction is scheduled for early 2016.
In 2011, the Korean Samsung Engineering, GS Engineering, Hyundai Engineering and Kogas signed separate contracts with the Uzbekneftegaz and Uz-Kor GasChemical for engineering, procurement and construction of Ustyurt GCC worth $ 2.6 billion.
Resource base of the project are field of Surgil, Eastern Berdah - Uchsay and Northern Berdah. The largest of them, Surgil, was discovered just over two years ago and is currently being developed by Uzbekneftegaz. Its reserves are about 120 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
This is the second GCC, which is planned to be built in Uzbekistan. In 2001 the republic commissioned Shurtan MCC. Technology of the complex is designed to produce 150 kinds of polyethylene of high, medium and line low pressure.
The design capacity of the GCC is 125,000 tons of polyethylene per year. The complex also annually produces 137 tons of liquefied gas, 130,000 tons of light condensate, 4.2 billion cubic meters of marketable gas, and 4,000 tons of sulfur.