Turkmenistan restores gas supplies to Uzbekistan

By BBC Monitoring

Turkmenistan has gradually resumed exporting natural gas to Uzbekistan, the privately-owned news website Gazeta.uz reported on 23 January, citing the press service of the Uzbek national gas supplier Uztransgaz.

It said that Turkmen gas supplies were restarted on 21 January. According to Uztransgaz, initially the volume of gas was 4.8m c.m. per day and has now been increased to 12.6m c.m..

"Gradually, the daily supply volume will increase to 16m c.m. This is how much was supplied before the cold snap," Uztransgaz was quoted as saying.

In December, "for the first time" Uzbekistan signed a short-term contract on gas supplies directly with Turkmenistan without intermediaries, the report said.

On 12 January, Turkmenistan suspended its gas supplies to Uzbekistan for technical reasons. Quoting experts, the report said that there was "hydrate formation in the intra-field pipelines in the Galkynysh gas condensate field" and that "this happens in severe frosts".

The suspension of Turkmen gas deliveries came at a time of strong public outcry in Uzbekistan over the energy crisis due to sustained freezing temperatures in the country. The residents of the capital Tashkent, in particular, have been experiencing unprecedented disruptions in heat, natural gas and electricity supplies.

Source: Gazeta.uz website, Tashkent, in Russian 0551 GMT 23 Jan 23