Uzbekneftegaz reported on January 17, 2018 that it opened new industrial gas condensate reserves in the Nizhny Surgil area of the Ustyurt plateau in Karakalpakstan. In early January 2018, at a depth of 3,600 meters, the company's specialists were able to detect the presence of industrial volumes of gas and condensate.
In the near future, an assessment of the growth of hydrocarbon reserves will be carried out and proposals will be prepared for further areas of geological exploration.
The Ustyurt plateau is one of the most important sources for the growth of hydrocarbons in Central Asia.
At the end of 2016, the daughter of Gazprom and Uzbekneftegaz, established a Natural Gas Stream joint venture for gas production at the Jel field (GKM) on the Ustyurt plateau. As part of this project, Uzbekneftegaz is preparing a technical specification, and together with Gazprom is considering the preparation of a PSA. The project is expected within the next 10 years of production capacity of 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas and 76,000 tons of condensate.
The volume of investments into the project is expected 700 million US dollars.
In total, Uzbekneftegaz plans to channel $ 3.9 billion by 2022. The program for increasing hydrocarbon production, 53.0 billion M3, gas condensate - 1.1 million tons and oil - 1.9 million tons.
In 2017, the country produced 56.4 billion cubic meters, with growth of 0.5% by 2016 and 806 thousand tons of oil - a decrease of 6.3%.