Uzbekistan eyes gas-driven downstream growth

New investment in gas-to-chemicals capacity could add value to an economy hobbled by declining Chinese import appetite

Uzbekistan’s Jizzakh Petroleum has firmed up plans to invest in a new state-of-the-art gas-to-chemicals complex, providing a welcome boost to the central Asian nation’s economic prospects in a year that has seen plunging gas exports to China. The joint venture between NOC Uzbekneftegaz and a subsidiary of Russia’s Gazprom will build a 500,000t/yr capacity olefins plant, based on methanol-to-olefins (MTO) technology. It will process 1.5bn m³/yr of gas and manufacture high-quality polymers—supplying products to textile, processing, automotive, pharmaceutical and other industries. The facility is scheduled to start up in 2025 and will focus on production of low-density polyethylene, ethylene-vi