Uzbekistan Courts U.S. Energy Companies

The Houston Chronicle
June 30, 1996

Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, armed with once-secret Soviet geological surveys, Thursday invited U.S. energy companies to bid on five oil and natural gas projects in the republic. "We have opened all our secrets to the U.S.," Karimov said through a translator during a speech in Houston. "We are willing to open to you every door." Karimov was in Houston as part of a tour of Europe and the United States to bolster trade ties and seek investment to help the country complete its transition to a free-market economy. Uzbekistan, a land-locked country south of Kazakhstan, was a major producer of cotton, gold and electricity for the Soviet Union, and now is the world's second-largest cotton exporter. Since declaring independence in September 1991, the republic is the only former Soviet state to increase oil output, becoming self-sufficient in crude oil production this year after boosting oil and condensate production to 8 million tons, or 160,000 barrels per day.U.S. companies are becoming quite familiar with opportunities in Uzbekistan.

Texaco on Thursday signed agreements to invest $6 million in a joint venture to manufacture lubricants, and Houston's Enron Oil & Gas entered into a gas venture valued at $1.3 billion. The project teams Enron Oil & Gas, Russia's Gazprom and Uzbekneftegaz, the state-run gas company of Uzbekistan, in the development of fields with 6 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves and estimated reserves of 20 trillion cubic feet. Earlier in the week, the venture received a commitment from the Overseas Private Investment Corp. to arrange $400 million financing and insurance once work begins.

© Copyright 1996

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