Uzbek stae company Uzbekneftegaz has lowered its forecast for natural gas production for 2023 from 34.1 billion to 32.3 billion cubic meters, said Bekhzod Usmanov, First Deputy Chairman of the Board for Transformation of Uzbekneftegaz, Gazeta.uz reports.
“[Production forecast] is slightly lower. Somewhere at 1.8 billion cubic meters. This happened due to the fact that our forecasts for the depletion of current [deposits] did not come true. They deplete faster. Our measures [to increase production] are not enough to maintain the production level at 34.1 billion cubic meters,” Usmanov said.
According to him, more investment is needed to carry out exploration work and discover new deposits.
Usmanov announced the gas production forecast until 2026 in November 2022 at the Tashkent Economic Forum. Then he said that in 2023 it is planned to produce 34.1 billion cubic meters of gas, including 1.8 billion cubic meters through geological exploration. But already in February, the forecast was reduced to 32.8 billion, and now to 32.3 billion cubic meters.
Judging by the schedule, natural production at current fields will continue to fall, since in order to maintain production at the level of 34.1 billion cubic meters in 2024, it is necessary to compensate for 4.6 billion cubic meters of gas through exploration, in 2025 - 7.1 billion cubic meters, in 2026 - 9.6 billion cubic meters.
To date, Uzbekneftegaz owns less than 50% of all oil and gas fields (118 out of 290).
In 2022, gas production amounted to 51.66 billion cubic meters, which is 4% or 2.1 billion cubic meters less than in 2021 (53.8 billion). Uzbekneftegaz accounted for 32.2 billion cubic meters (the forecast was 34 billion) or 62.3% of production, making the company the largest gas producer in Uzbekistan.
In addition, in Uzbekistan, gas production in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2022 fell by 9.6%, or by 2.51 billion cubic meters, to 23.56 billion cubic meters.
Commenting on the sharp drop in gas production in Uzbekistan, Energy Minister Zhurabek Mirzamakhmudov said earlier that “the dynamics will change in a positive direction” from the second half of this year. According to him, the decline in gas production was mainly due to Uzbekneftegaz, since "75-80% of the company's fields have already been developed."
CentrallasianLIGHT.org
August 21, 2023