DUSHANBE, July 20, 2010, Asia-Plus — The Tajik Aluminum Company (TALCO) and Tojikcement (Dushanbe cement plant) have fully paid off their debts to Tojiktransgaz (Tajik state natural-gas distributor), the Tojiktransgaz deputy head, Shavkat Shoimov, told Asia-plus Tuesday afternoon.
As of July 1,2010, TAALCO and Tojikcement owed US$250,000 and US$350,000 to Tojiktransgaz respectively.
The most incorrigible nonpayer is the empties production plant, Lal, which now owes one million U.S. dollars to Tojiktransgaz. “Lal has committed itself to repay its debts this autumn,” Shoimov noted.
In the meantime, Tojiktransgaz now owes nearly 2 million U.S. dollars in arrears to the Uzbek natural-gas supplier, Uztransgaz, Shoimov added. “We are repaying our debt to Uztransgaz gradually,” said the Tojiktransgaz official, “Sometimes, money conversion difficulties are arising as local enterprises pay us in the local currency, the somoni, while we have to transfer money to Uztransgaz in dollars.”
According to Tojiktransgaz, they now supply up to 16,000 cubic meters of natural gas to local enterprises per day.
We will recall that Tajikistan will buy 250 million cubic meters of natural gas from Uzbekistan this year and the gas price vary quarterly depending on the world trends. Uzbekistan still set gas price for Tajikistan at the rate of 240 U.S. dollars per 1,000 cubic meters and Tajikistan must make prepayments every ten days. In the meantime, Tajikistan’s annual requirements in natural gas are some 2 billion cubic meters.
