Uzbekistan, Tashkent, May 14 / Trend, D. Azizov /
Vietnamese Petrovietnam Exploration & Production (PVEP) will begin exploration in the Molabaursk investment block of the Ustyurt region (north-west of the country) in Uzbekistan by the end of 2013, the PVEP representative Nguyen Thanh said at the Oil & Gas Exhibition OGU-2013, which opened in Tashkent on Tuesday.
"We received a license for exploration in late April, and a study on the provided materials on the block is currently underway. We will announce a tender to start drilling in the end of the year," Thanh said.
In February 2010, PVEP and the National Holding Company (NHC) Uzbekneftegaz signed an agreement on the basic principles of the exploration on Kossor investment block in the Ustyurt region for a five-year term within an investment of $29.4 million. A 2D seismic survey has recently been conducted in the license area within 886 line kilometers, along with the welding within 2,065 line kilometers. Testing of the well No.1 at a depth of 4,014 meters is currently underway.
In 2010, the Vietnamese company and the Uzbeks also signed a memorandum under which PVEP has to explore the possibility of carrying out exploration for oil and gas reserves in the Bukhara-Khiva region of Uzbekistan.
As reported earlier, in June 2012, PVEP and Uzbekneftegaz signed an agreement for five years of exploration work on the investment block Molabaursk with a total area of 3,600 kilometers. Investments made by the Vietnamese company will amount to $61.6 million. The operator of the project is Kossor Operating Company LLC which leads exploration of the Kossor block.
Foreign investors in Uzbekistan may undertake exploration works in 44 designated investment units. Of these, licenses were issued on 22 units to foreign companies. Exploration and development of fields in Ustyurt are carried by Russian Gazprom and Lukoil, Korean Daewoo International and KOGAS, China's CNPC and Malaysia's Petronas. The total amount of investment of foreign companies in exploration in this region exceeds $700 million.
Currently, there are 232 open hydrocarbon deposits in Uzbekistan, of which 183 are gas deposits. 103 discovered fields are under development, 60 are ready for development and exploration works are underway at 69 fields.