Who owns oil and gas fields in Uzbekistan?

On February 12, the Minister of Energy Jurabek Mirzamahmudov, and the chairman of JSC Uzbekneftegaz Mehriddin Abdullayev met with journalists and public representatives to answer their questions about the oil and gas sector.

Kun.uz, based on the information provided by the minister, has compiled a list of companies that own the country’s mines.

According to officials, there are 295 gas and oil fields in Uzbekistan. 118 of them (40 percent) are owned by JSC Uzbekneftegaz, while the rest (176) belong to joint ventures and foreign companies.

According to Mehriddin Abdullayev, chairman of Uzbekneftegaz, after 2017, mainly gas fields are left at the company’s disposal. Oil fields were given to SanEG (ex Jizzakh petroleum), which now owns 105 oil mines. The number of mines owned by Uzbekneftegaz has halved in the past years after it secretly transferred the rights to these fields to an offshore company.

The following companies also own certain oil and gas fields in Uzbekistan:

- Russian company Lukoil – 13 mines 
- Russian company Gazprom – 2 mines
- Gissarneft, 50 percent of which belonged to Gazprom, but is now owned by businessman Bakhtiyor Fazilov – 8 mines
- AndijanPetro, 50 percent of which is owned by Russian company Zarubejneft – 3 mines 
- Gazli Gaz Storage, 60 percent of which is owned by Russian company Forus – 1 mine
- Surkhan Gas Chemical, 80 percent of which is owned by entrepreneurs Andrey Filatov and Bakhtiyor Fazilov – 1 mine
- Natural Gas Stream, 50 percent of which is owned by entrepreneurs Andrey Filatov and Bakhtiyor Fazilov – 10 mines 
- Russian company Petromaruz Overseas LLP – 1 mine
- Epsilon, registered in the USA and previously owned by Mirodil Jalolov, ex-director of Zeromax – 18 mines 
- CNPC, Chinese state corporation – 13 mines 
- Uz-Kor-Gas Chemical, 50 percent of which is owned by South Korea – 1 mine
- UzMaloil, Uzbekistan-Malaysia joint venture – 1 mine 

This list provides data only about the number of mines; their capacity and size may differ significantly. That is, it is impossible to tell which companies own the largest reserves based on the number of mines because 10 small mines may not have as large reserves as one large mine.

The Energy Ministry did not disclose any information about which companies own how much reserves. Kun.uz asked the ministry for data on how much gas the above companies produced in 2022. As soon as the ministry provides details, we will publish it additionally.

Madina Ochilova
Journalist