Baku, Azerbaijan, July 13
By Fakhri Vakilov - Trend:
Until December 1, 2019, it is planned to prepare a draft law "On Production Sharing Agreement" (PSA) in a new edition in Uzbekistan, Trend reports citing Podrobno.uz.
"This law was adopted more than 15 years ago and naturally not all the issues reflected in it today satisfy our requirements for production sharing agreements. Today, our ability to attract investments has increased significantly, and naturally we believe that the law should be revised," chairman of the board of the Uzbekneftegaz Bahodirjon Sidikov said.
He stated that it is planned to attract international experts and use the successful experience of other countries in this direction to work on a new draft document.
"It is also planned to discuss the possibility of acquiring natural gas on the domestic market from operators on PSA projects. This issue, of course, needs to be discussed. This is also possible under current legislation but it is necessary that the law meets all modern requirements," he said.
Recently the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, speaking in the Senate, noted that the national interests were not taken into account when drawing up the PSA with the Russian company Lukoil.
Uzbekistan owes Lukoil about $600 million for gas supplies in 2018.
The debt was formed as a result of the fact that Uzbekistan took part of the gas to the domestic market, although the terms of the production sharing agreement with the Russians provided for the export of the entire volume of gas produced in Uzbekistan.
Therefore, Uzbekistan had to buy gas not at domestic, but at international prices.
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