Uzbekistan's state gas company is working to adapt its pipeline infrastructure to allow it to import fuel from Russia, a move that is being taken urgently to avoid a repeat of the winter's chronic gas shortages.
At the end of last year, Tashkent already received a similar invitation to a gas union with Russia and Kazakhstan. Now Uztransgaz seems to justify itself in its Telegram channel on March 3 that the goal of the work is to prevent gas imported from Russia from interfering with the flow of locally produced gas in the national pipeline network, and not at all to create a consortium with the Russian Federation, thereby hiding the government’s miscalculations .
This inevitable dependence on Russian gas is a crushing admission of the failure of Uzbekistan's energy sector development program. As far back as last year, Tashkent was making money selling gas to China, but in December a spokesman for Uztransgaz was forced to admit that all exports had been halted due to growing public outrage over a wave of blackouts across the country.
Russia, of course, saw in the crisis an opportunity to help the former Soviet republic, at the same time gaining a real lever of influence on Tashkent, despite the fact that the initial reaction of the Uzbek government to the proposals of the head of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin was, to put it mildly, cautious.
According to Energy Minister Jorabek Mirzamakhmudov, quoted by Reuters, no consultations have yet been held on the signing of the agreement, although work on actual rapprochement in the field of gas cooperation is proceeding at an accelerated pace. But if any gas agreement is concluded, it will be purely technical and financial transaction. In other words, political moment supposedly swept aside. At least that's what they say in Uzbekistan. But the fact of dependence will be difficult to deny.
It is noteworthy that Kazakhstan, like Uzbekistan, is also experiencing an acute shortage of gas, and has suspended its export to China. Both countries at the end of last year wanted to "save face" before the West by not entering into closer relations with Moscow on blue fuel. However, already in the current one, they have lost every possible justification and, of course, their face in front of their own citizens, who were freezing without fuel. Now I had to enter into an alliance with the Russian Federation, perhaps even on worse terms than at the time of the official proposal.