DUSHANBE, September 30, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan state natural-gas distributor, Tojikgaz, has not yet started negotiations with Uzbekistan on prices for natural-gas imports for 2009.
Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, the Tojikgaz head Fathiddin Muhsiddinov noted that last year, an agreement on Uzbek gas shipments to Tajikistan was signed on December 28. “Therefore, we still have time to conduct the gas price negotiations,” Muhsiddinov said, adding that the Uzbek side has not yet informed them about the gas prices for 2009.
“We have not yet received any proposals from our Uzbek colleagues on a specific price for natural gas for the next year,” the Tojikgaz head said.
We will recall that an agreement on natural gas imported from Uzbekistan, concluded with officials from Uztransgaz, the state gas producer in Uzbekistan, in December 2007 set the price of gas imports at $145 per 1,000 cubic meters, nearly 50 percent increase over the 2007 price. The agreement covered the import of 650 million cubic meters of natural gas from Uzbekistan through 2008.
Uzbek natural gas is currently supplied to Tajikistan at the rate of 600 cubic meters per day. Uzbekistan considerably cut natural-gas shipments to Tajikistan due to the roughly $7 million in arrears that Tojikgaz owes to Uzbekistan.
