Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 25
By Fakhri Vakilov – Trend:
Russian Lukoil company plans to invest $2 billion in existing projects in Uzbekistan, and also intends to conduct exploration on new blocks, Trend reports via Gazeta.uz.
On Thursday, April 25, Lukoil, held an on-site meeting of the company's board of directors on the Kadym gas processing complex in the Bukhara region of Uzbekistan,.
“The company still has a big investment cycle on our existing projects - about $ 2 billion,” company president Vagit Alekperov said after the meeting.
He stated that these funds will be used to reduce the decline in gas production at fields in the Southern Gissar and the Kandym group.
Alekperov said that Lukoil is committed to new investments and exploration in the country.
“We started exploring three blocks which require a lot of work,” Alekperov said.
The Minister of Energy of Uzbekistan, Alisher Sultanov, said that Uzbekistan hopes for new projects of Lukoil in the field of gas chemistry and hydrocarbon exploration in promising areas of the country.
“We hope that in the near future we will expand our cooperation. In particular, geological exploration,” he said.
The minister said that materials on three oil and gas blocks in the Navoi region had already been transferred to Lukoil.
“We hope that there will be further work on in-depth gas processing and gas chemistry at the Kandym field’s base,” the minister added.
He noted that Lukoil is the main strategic partner for Uzbekistan, which has invested the most in the country's economy, among foreign investors.
In October 2018, Vagit Alekperov said that Lukoil and Uzbekneftegaz would explore the prospects for exploratory drilling in northern Uzbekistan. In March, Nodir Mukhutdinov, head of the department for coordinating the production activities of Uzbekneftegaz, said that Lukoil may begin exploration on three new sites in Uzbekistan in early 2020.
Lukoil has been working in Uzbekistan for 15 years. Its total investment in all projects in the country is about $8 billion.
The company took part in the largest projects in the country, working on the basis of production sharing agreements for Kandym-Khauzak-Shady and Gissar projects.
The cumulative natural gas production at projects controlled by Lukoil in Uzbekistan reached 60 billion cubic meters.
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