Transitor's interest

Uzbekistan offered Gazprom to buy gas at $180 per thousand cubic meters

A week before the New Year, Gazprom does not have guarantees for the transit of contracted Turkmen gas through Uzbekistan and has not agreed on the terms of purchase of Uzbek gas. At the end of last week, the chairman of the board of the Russian concern, Alexey Miller, flew to Tashkent, where he held meetings with the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Rustam Azimov. However, he returned from there with nothing. “As a result of the negotiations, an agreement on mutually acceptable prices for the export of Uzbek gas and tariffs for the transit of Turkmen gas for 2008 was not reached,” Uzbek media reported over the weekend. However, after some time this message disappeared from the official information sites of Uzbekistan. Gazprom does not comment on the topic, and Vremya Novostey’s source in the company says that negotiations will continue, although the date for Mr. Miller’s return visit to Uzbekistan was not announced yesterday.

The value of the agreements with Uzbekistan for Gazprom is very great - this is 50 billion cubic meters of gas in 2008, which should almost completely cover Ukraine's needs for imported fuel. Of this volume, the Russian monopolist buys about 10 billion cubic meters from Uzbekneftegaz (which, in turn, purchases gas also from Russian oil and gas companies operating in Uzbekistan, for example from LUKOIL, which want to sell it as expensive as possible) and up to 40 more billion cubic meters are pumped from Turkmenistan through Uztransgaz gas pipelines.

After Gazprom agreed to a 40 percent increase in prices for Turkmen gas - from 100 to 140 dollars (on average) per thousand cubic meters - it became clear that Tashkent would also require an increase. And a change in the transit rate of Turkmen gas through Russia (from $1.6 to $1.7 per thousand cubic meters per 100 km) will trigger tariff negotiations with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. As the top manager of Uzbekneftegaz told reporters at the end of November, the intention to increase gas prices was dictated by the rising cost of oil: “Judge for yourself, in November last year the cost of oil to calculate the gas price formula was taken at $64 per barrel, and now it costs almost 100. We believe that the price of gas should also increase significantly." However, the requests of the Uzbek partners, apparently, exceeded all expectations. According to unofficial data, Mr. Karimov offered to buy gas at $180 per thousand cubic meters. This is exactly the price he approved a week ago for neighboring Tajikistan, which now receives fuel, like Gazprom, at $100. Uzbekistan also wants to radically revise the transit rate - from $1.1 to $1.8 per thousand cubic meters per 100 km.

The signing of an intergovernmental agreement between Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan on the construction of a new Caspian gas pipeline, which will allow Ashgabat to increase gas exports bypassing Uzbek territory, which took place last Thursday in Moscow, obviously added to Mr. Karimov’s desire to maximize prices before this gas pipeline is completed. built. As you know, the declaration on the modernization and development of the “Central Asia - Center” system (through which Turkmen, Uzbek and Kazakh gas goes to Russia) was signed in May by the presidents of all four countries. However, Mr. Karimov then did this in absentia (and did not come to the summit in Turkmenbashi). And when last week, as a follow-up to that declaration, an intergovernmental agreement on the Caspian pipeline was signed, the interests of Uzbekistan were sidelined. Moreover, in a hurry, the Kremlin forgot or did not consider it necessary to observe the diplomatic ritual in relation to Tashkent, while Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev made a special call to President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, who did not come to Moscow, before signing the intergovernmental agreement. Obviously, all this cost Alexey Miller an extra $40 on the price of a thousand cubic meters of Uzbek gas for 2008.

Alexey GRIVACHS