Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Feb 15 / Trend D.Azizov /
National holding company (NHC) Uzbekneftgaz, Korean gas corporation (Kogas) and Korean company Kolon will found a joint venture on constructing and exploiting automobile gas-filling compressor stations system in Uzbekistan.
An agreement about basic principles of establishing a JV was signed last week during Uzbek President Islam Karimov to South Korea. Constitutive documents on establishing JV will be signed in first six months of 2010.
In June 2009, Uzbekneftgaz announced a tender to select a foreign participant for JV on the building of automobile gas-filling compressor stations system in regions with 51 percent of Uzbekistan.
The tender was to be summarized in September, whereas the contest was halted in August in connection with the necessity of completing the technical task.
Altogether it's planned to build 30 automobile gas-filling compressor stations in all regions of the country with preliminary cost of $50 million. Annual capacity of each station will be 4 million cubic meters of compressed natural gas. The project will take 4 years to complete.
In 2009, Uzbekneftgas on a par with Korean Blitix. Co. Ltd established UB Energy JV on production of automobile gas-filling compressor stations and automobile gas bottles equipment. The project with the cost of $8.4 million stipulates manufacturing 33 units of automobile gas-filling compressor stations complete sets and about 70,000 gas bottles a year. The JV is planning to launch the project this year.
The State Program on phased transfer of motor transport of the country on gas-motored fuel till the end of 2012 was affirmed.
Within the program, it's planned to build 138 automobile gas-filling compressor stations with general reservoir of 708 million cubic meters of compressed gas and 952 gas-filling stations with general capacity of 476,000 tons of condensed gas.
Currently more than 3 million units of motor transport are exploited on the roads of Uzbekistan and 10 percent of them work on gas.
Uzbekistan takes the second place after Russia among CIS countries on natural gas extraction. Annually the country produces 60 billion cubic meters of gas. Uzbekneftgaz, monopolistic operator of oil-and-gas complex of Uzbekistan, was founded in 1998 and unites with 6 joint-stock companies.
The capacity of Uzbekneftgaz enables to extract natural gas in amount of 70 billion cubic meters and liquid hydrocarbon in amount of 8 million tons a year.
In 2009 Uzbekneftgaz decreased gas extraction by 3.8 percent to 61.41 billion cubic meters, condensed gas production by 0.7% to 246,100 tons.