UZBEKISTAN POISED TO BEGIN EXPORT OF OIL PRODUCTS TO CIS COUNTRIES.

Uzbekistan has commissioned new installations which will boost to 4.5 million tons the annual output of the country’s largest oil and gas condensate deposit, located at Kokdumalak in Kashkadaria region. The recovery rate of condensate is also being boosted from 25 percent to 70 percent. Extraction and refining installations are being supplied by the U.S.-Japanese consortium Kellogg-Nissho Iwai under a 1995 contract worth $163 million, financed largely on credit from the Export-Import Banks of the U.S. and Japan. Kokdumalak’s proven reserves are nearly 200 million tons of oil and gas condensate. First Deputy Prime Minister Ismail Jurabekov announced at the commissioning ceremony that Uzbekistan plans to begin exporting oil products from the Kokdumalak refinery to CIS countries. (International agencies, July 14-15)

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