MOSCOW, February 5 (RIA Novosti) - Gasprom and Uztransgas companies have signed a contract package to pipe Central Asian natural gas via Uzbekistan and import Uzbek gas to Russia. This year's contract supplies will make five billion cubic meters, Gasprom PR say in a press release.
Uzbek natural gas deposits are estimated to exceed 6.25 trillion cu m. Annual average extraction amounts to 55 billion cu m. Uzbekistan exports five billion of this to the neighboring Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Exports to Russia started in May 2003 to make 1.27 billion cu m within the year, and closely approach a seven billion mark the next.
Guiding partnership with Uzbekistan for its gas-piping progress is the Central Asia-Center, an ambitious transnational project on which available mainlines are extended and updated, and new ones laid in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia for Central Asian gas transportation on a scale envisaged by international understandings.
