Currently, only two companies – domestic Somon Oil and China’s CNPC – have licenses for exploring oil and gas deposits in in Tajikistan, Ilhomjon Oimuhammadzoda, the head of the Main Geology Directorate under the Government of Tajikistan, told reporters in Dushanbe on July 27.
He denied information that Russia’s state-controlled company Gazprom is engaged in exploring gas deposits in the Tajik northern province of Sughd as baseless.
He noted that domestic Somon Oil is engaged in exploring oil and gas deposits in Sughd province and China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) is engaged in exploring oil and gas deposits in the south of Tajikistan.
Concerning specific results regarding the exploration of hydrocarbons, Tajik chief geologist said that “there is no concrete work at the moment.”
“Somon-Oli, which was granted the license for operations in the north of the country, so far has limited only to geodetic measurements and has not set other tasks, including drilling,” Oimuhammadzoda noted.
“On the other hand, CNPC, which is the only company having the license for exploration of hydrocarbons in the south of the country, has already conducted seismic measurements and plans to carry out other types of geophysical work, including magnetotelluric soundings,” he said.
Oimuhammadzoda further added the confirmed aggregate raw-materials resources of the oil and gas bearing areas in Tajikistan amount to more than 2.5 billion tons.
Meanwhile, according to the previous expert estimates, the aggregate raw-materials resources of the oil and gas bearing areas in Tajikistan amount to about 1,000 billion tons of reference fuel. At the same time, production work at oil and gas fields require considerable expenditure, since hydrocarbon deposits occur at depths ranging from 6.5 to 8 kilometers.
