Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Sept. 21
By Fakhri Vakilov - Trend:
Uzbeknefteqaz has already received draft of agreements from the companies who want to work on Ustyurt field of Uzbekistan, Chairman of the Board of Uzbeknefteqaz JSC Bahodirjon Sidikov told Trend in an interview.
He made the remarks on the sidelines of the First Dialogue of Energy Ministers of the Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Member Countries and the Central Asian Energy Investment Forum 2019 in Uzbekistan.
“Currently we have several oil and gas investment regions in terms of exploration. We consider Ustyurt region one of the most perspective regions in the country. Ustyurt is in the northern part of Uzbekistan. We have tried to do more exploration in the central part of Ustyurt region and we have received very good results,” Sidikov said.
He added that Ustyurt region divided for more than 20 investment blocks and a lot of foreign companies consider participation in this investment blocks for exploration.
“However, we have found out that all the researches and all the drillings on Ustyurt region are done up to certain depth. I am talking about 2500-3000 meters. So, for the last 2-3 years we decided to go a little bit deeper. We are drilling wells up to 4,000 meters which is actually short because there is a really big potential in layers,” Sidikov stated.
He stressed that from this perspective all potential partners of Uzbeknefteqaz show interest in the field as the company demonstrated how much gas was found in central Ustyurt in the last three years.
“I believe that by the end of this year we will already make some proposals to the government to cooperate with at least three international companies in this area. By 2020 we will bring the number of cooperating international companies to five,” Sidikov noted.
“We already received the draft of agreements from international companies. Now we are under negotiation process and I believe that by the end of the year we will be ready to conclude a contract,” he added.
The First Dialogue of Energy Ministers of the Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Member Countries and the Central Asian Energy Investment Forum 2019 are held in the capital of Uzbekistan (Tashkent) September 20-21.
The dialogue was organized by the Government of Uzbekistan jointly with the Asian Development Bank under the auspices of CAREC, partnerships from 11 countries and development partners working together to promote development through cooperation.
CAREC Program was created on the initiative of the Asian Development Bank in 2001.
The CAREC Program is a partnership of a number of countries and development partners working together to advance development through cooperation leading to accelerated economic growth and shared prosperity. Member countries include Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, China, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia.