Kogas to Join Uzbek Surgil Project

Korea Gas Corp has decided to invest U$3.04 million in a Malaysian registered company, Kor-Uz Gas Chemical Investment Ltd, to participate in a project in Surgil, Uzbekistan, UzDaily reported.

After the purchase, Korea Gas Corp will hold a 45% stake in the Kor-Uz, while South Korea's Honam Petrochemical Corp will have a 45% and STX Energy will hold a remaining 10%.

In February 2008, Uzbekneftegaz and South Korean consortium created a joint venture UzKorGasChemical for construction of the Ustyurt Gas-Chemical Complex to develop the Surgil deposit. The consortium included Kogas, Lotte Daesan Petrochemical Corp. (in 2009, it was replaced with Honam Petrochemical), LG International Corp., SK Gas and STX Energy.

In 2009, Samsung Engineering and Uzbekneftegaz’s UzLITIneftegaz developed preliminary feasibility study of technological part of the project, which envisaged construction of the complex with the capacity of 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas and production of 400,000 polyethylene and 100,000 tonnes of polypropylene.

Uzbekneftegaz is also conducting gas-field construction of Surgil field. The field will annually supply 3 billion cubic meters of gas to the Ustyurt Gas-Chemical Complex. Another 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas will be supplied to the complex from other fields in Ustyurt region.

Surgil field was opened in March 2006 and now it is developed by Uzbekneftegaz. Its reserves are estimated to be about 120 billion cubic meters of gas.