DUSHANBE, December 11, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have failed to reach a consensus on prices of Uzbek natural gas to be imported to Tajikistan in 2008.
Fathiddin Muhsiddinov, director general of Tojikgaz (Tajik national natural-gas-distributor), who just returned from Tashkent told Asia-Plus that talks would be resumed in several days. He refrained from giving further details.
We will recall that top managers of Tojikgaz visited Tashkent last week to negotiate with Uzbek authorities natural-gas supplies of 1 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Tajikistan next year. The sides agreed on the volume of natural gas to be supplied to Tajikistan in 2008, but they failed to reach a consensus on new prices for Uzbek gas, and the gas talks ended inconclusively.
The source at Tojikgaz said that the consultations had been an attempt to get minimal increase in the new prices that Uzbekistan plans to charge Tajikistan, and by government’s order Muhsiddinov went to Tashkent last weekend to discuss prices for Uzbek natural gas, which Tajikistan would import in 2008. However, he also failed to reach an agreement with Uzbek gas authorities on gas prices.
According to him, the Uzbek side intends to raise the price of natural gas for Tajikistan from $100 to $185 per 1,000 cubic meters starting on January 1, 2008.
As it had been reported earlier, in early 2007, Tajikistan reached an agreement with Uzbekistan on delivery of 700 million cubic meters of gas to Tajikistan in 2007 at the rate of $100 per 1,000 cubic meters. However, later Tajikistan decided to reduce the requested volume to 650 million cubic meters because many enterprises failed to purchase the requested volumes.
Specialists from Tojikgaz said that reduction in the overall requested volume had not impacted the public. “Tajikistan now receives natural gas at the rate of up to 3 million cubic meter per day, which is quite enough to meet the population’s requirements in natural gas,” said the Tojikgaz source, “562 million cubic meters of natural gas have been supplied to Tajikistan since the beginning of the year, and remaining 88 million cubic meters are enough to avoid gas shortages before the end of this year”
“Increase in the volume of natural gas for 2008 up to 1billion cubic meters is connected with additional applications for natural gas from Dushanbe, Yovon and Chkalovks heat stations, which work on natural gas,” said the source.
