Uzbekistan concludes agreement with Gazprom to import Russian gas for the first time

On Monday, Uzbekistan announced the signing of a two-year contract with Russia’s Gazprom Group to obtain Russian gas supplies, a former Central Asian region to which Moscow is attempting to redirect its exports under international sanctions.

The Ministry of Energy of Uzbekistan said in a statement that the companies “Ozgaztred and Gazerbom Express have entered into a two-year contract.”

The Ministry told AFP that this would be the first import of Russian gas from Uzbekistan.

It also confirmed that shipments would begin “from October 1, with a total annual volume of approximately 2.8 billion cubic metres” via the Soviet-built Central Asian gas pipeline linking Russia to former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

This agreement, signed on Friday in St. Petersburg and detected in detail on Monday, followed a year marked by a sharp decline in Russian gas shipments to Europe following Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.