Media reports say Uzbekistan has reached a deal with Russia’s Gazprom to buy 2.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually over the coming two years as part of a broader effort to prevent winter-time shortages.
The Energy Ministry said in a statement on June 19 that daily deliveries of 9 million cubic meters of gas will start from October 1.
Gazeta.uz reported on June 19 that the Ministry of Energy of Uzbekistan announced details of a two-year gas agreement with Gazprom. It will supply 9 million cubic meters of natural gas daily and an annual volume will reach almost 2.8 billion cubic meters.
This is reportedly in contrast to earlier reports by Kommersant, which stated that the volume would be twice as much.
“The agreement has been developed entirely on commercial terms and is one of the measures to partially meet the annually growing demand for natural gas of the republic’s consumers, as well as to conduct the autumn-winter season without interruptions,” says a statement released by the Ministry of Energy of Uzbekistan
The ministry said in its statement that the tariff will be based on market rates and prices within Uzbekistan.
The gas to be sent from Russia to Uzbekistan, it will need to be pumped via Kazakhstan through the Central Asia-Center, or CAC, pipeline, which has historically been used to carry gas from south to north.
“Taking into account that natural gas used to be supplied to Russia by transit through Kazakhstan via the Central Asia-Center main gas pipeline and now gas will be supplied in reverse mode to Uzbekistan, as well as the need to build new gas metering stations in Uzbekistan, the road map plans to complete the planned activities by September,” the statement said.
Opponents of this trade have argued that Uzbekistan should avoid developing a dependence on Russian gas for its domestic needs. They also bemoan this turn of events as a consequence of the government’s failure to properly develop the country’s own resources. As recently as last year, Tashkent earned money selling gas to China. But those exports were halted amid mounting public anger over a nationwide wave of power outages.
