BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 30
By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:
Uzbekistan reduced natural gas exports in the period from January through June 2020 by 74.2 percent compared to the same period last year, to 1.4 billion cubic meters, Trend reports referring to nuz.uz news agency.
In total, Uzbekistan exported $218.4 million worth of gas in the first half of 2020, which is 77.1 percent less than in the same period of 2019.
The main exporter of Uzbek gas in the period from January through July 2020, was China.
Supplies to China decreased in physical volume by 43.4 percent to 1.2 billion cubic meters and in value terms decreased by almost 52 percent to $198.3 million.
At the same time, the weighted average price of Uzbek natural gas supplied to China decreased from $186 per 1,000 cubic meters to $158 per 1,000 cubic meters (a 15 percent decrease) in the first half of 2020, compared to the first half of 2019.
Natural gas production in Uzbekistan decreased by 7.7 percent in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the first quarter of 2020, and by 25.3 percent compared to the second quarter of 2019.
At the same time, gas production in Uzbekistan increased by 3.2 percent in June 2020 compared to May 2020 and decreased by 13.1 percent to just over four billion cubic meters compared to June 2019.
Uzbekistan produced 25.1 billion cubic meters of gas during second quarter of 2020.
Gas production volume of Uzbekistan in May 2020 was the lowest since the beginning of 2018. In May natural gas production decreased by 23.5 percent compared to May 2019, and amounted to 3.8 billion cubic meters.
Natural gas production and exploration in Uzbekistan is carried out by enterprises controlled by Uzbekistan's Uzneftegazdobycha JSC and Russia's Lukoil and Gazprom in the form of joint ventures and subsidiaries as well as by Chinese CNPC, French Total, Azerbaijani SOCAR, US Epsilon and a number of other companies. Proved natural gas reserves in Uzbekistan amount to 1.1 trillion cubic meters, and the total volume is five trillion cubic meters.
Currently, the capacity of Uzbekistan's oil and gas industry allows producing at least 70 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually.
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