The chairman of Uzbekneftegaz, Bahodir Sidikov, in an interview to Gazeta.uz, announced the discovery of a new abnormally high-pressure gas field in Uzbekistan, which had already shown high productivity in the initial stages of drilling.
In mid-September, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced the discovery of a "very large gas field" in the Ustyurt region at a record depth of 6.5 km.
Sidikov clarified that this referred to the Muynak gas field in the Muynak district of Karakalpakstan. On July 26, a gas blowout occurred at a depth of 4,707 meters while drilling of a first exploration well at a 5,000-meter depth. The accident was rectified within a month.
"Thank God, we had no incidents, everything is fine. We have only opened this layer, which the president mentioned, for the first, well, a maximum of 5 meters. And these 5 meters show abnormally high pressure. We haven't encountered anything like this at the institute. We haven't encountered it in other regions either," he said.
According to Sidikov, the company has begun drilling four additional wells to clarify the parameters of the field and estimate the gas reserves.
"For example, this gas layer is like a cake. We shouldn't just look at 5 meters of it. We need to go all the way through it, see where it ends. That is, determine the thickness. Based on this thickness, it then spreads across the territory and is multiplied. We are not yet ready to say exactly how much gas there is," the head of the company explained.
Sidikov underscored that in just two months, one well had produced 100 million cubic meters of gas at a cost of about 45 billion soums. While, the revenue for this period topped nearly 60 billion soums. "That is, it is a very unique field, actually. The pressure there is very high," he emphasized.
He added that the company intended to develop the field independently without attracting foreign partners.
"This is 100% our field. We want to develop it ourselves. We have enough skills and finances," said Bakhodir Sidikov.
According to the Institute of Energy's assessment, proven natural gas reserves in Uzbekistan reached 1.97 trillion cubic meters at the end of 2024. However, production has been declining in recent years – 44.6 billion cubic meters at the end of last year (32.2 billion cubic meters in the first nine months, -4.4%). Compared to 2019 (59.4 billion), the decrease stood at 14.9 billion cubic meters.
Against this backdrop, Uzbekistan has begun developing renewable energy and importing gas from Russia and Turkmenistan.
