Natural gas and electricity worth 550 billion UZS stolen in H1 2024

As a result, Uzbekistan suffered financial losses amounting to 550 billion UZS due to the unauthorized use of natural gas and electricity. This information was disclosed during a briefing held by the Inspectorate for Controlling the Use of Electric Energy, Oil Products, and Gas.

During the inspection activities conducted over the past six months in collaboration with law enforcement agencies and specialists from electricity and gas supply companies, 4,537 consumers were found to have illegally used natural gas and electricity. Specifically, the illegal consumption included 163.3 million cubic meters of natural gas valued at 249.3 billion UZS and 220.7 million kilowatt-hours of electricity valued at 301 billion UZS, leading to a total financial damage of 550.3 billion UZS to the state.

Significant violations were detected in 89 CNG filling stations, 94 greenhouses, 94 textile enterprises, and 2 lime production workshops.

Additionally, 75 cases of illegal electricity usage in cryptocurrency and mining operations were identified. Consequently, the electricity supply company recalculated charges totaling 81.6 billion UZS.

A total of 3,382 administrative cases were registered for offenses related to violations of energy resource usage rules by consumers. Among these, 1,904 cases were related to electricity violations, and 1,478 were related to natural gas violations.

Furthermore, during quality control activities carried out by the inspectorate's control and chemical laboratories, 3.79 million liters of oil products were found to be of poor quality in 91 cases and were prevented from being sold.