Uzbekistan GTL is a planned gas-to-liquids (GTL) project based in northern Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....

.

History

Construction of a GTL plant in Uzbekistan was discussed between Uzbekneftegaz

Uzbekneftegaz

Uzbekneftegaz ) is a state-owned holding company of Uzbekistan's oil and gas industry.-History:Uzbekneftegaz was established in 1992...

 and Abu Dhabi's International Petroleum Investment Company in March 2008. However, in April 2009 Uzbekneftegaz signed a heads of agreement for the GTL project with Sasol

Sasol

Sasol Ltd. is a South African company involved in mining, energy, chemicals and synfuels. In particular, they produce petrol and diesel profitably from coal and natural gas using Fischer-Tropsch process...

 and Petronas

Petronas

PETRONAS, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company that was founded on August 17, 1974. Wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia, the corporation is vested with the entire oil and gas resources in Malaysia and is entrusted with the responsibility of developing and...

. On 15 July 2009, Sasol, Petronas, and Uzbekneftegaz signed an agreement to establish a joint venture for developing the GTL project. The detailed feasibility study will be conducted by Technip

Technip

Technip is a provider of project management, engineering, and construction services for the oil and gas industry, headquartered in Paris, France....

.

Technical features

The plant will use the Sasol's slurry phase distillate process. The annual capacity of the plant would be 1.3 million tonnes of petroleum product

Petroleum product

Petroleum products are useful materials derived from crude oil as it is processed in oil refineries.According to crude oil composition and demand, refineries can produce different shares of petroleum products. The largest share of oil products is used as energy carriers: various grades of fuel...

s such as diesel, kerosene

Kerosene

Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin or paraffin oil in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland and South Africa, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid. The name is derived from Greek keros...

, naphtha

Naphtha

Naphtha normally refers to a number of different flammable liquid mixtures of hydrocarbons, i.e., a component of natural gas condensate or a distillation product from petroleum, coal tar or peat boiling in a certain range and containing certain hydrocarbons. It is a broad term covering among the...

 and liquefied petroleum gas. The project is expected to cost US$2.5 billion.

Ownership

The project to be jointly developed by Sasol, Petronas, and Uzbekneftegaz. Each partner will have an equal share in the joint venture.