DUSHANBE, February 1, 2011, Asia-Plus  -- A delegation of Gazprom and Gazprom Zarubezhneftegaz has visited Tajikistan to get acquainted with the process of implementation of the Gazprom gas exploration project in the country, according to the representative office of the Gazprom Zarubezhneftegaz in Dushanbe.

The delegation was in Tajikistan from January 26 to January 28 and a meeting that was held at Gazprom Zarubezhneftegaz’s office in Dushanbe considered the Gazprom Zarubezhneftegaz proposals on expanding gas exploration cooperation with Tajikistan.  Cooperation in exploring gas fields located in the north and the south of the country was a major topic of the meeting, the source said.

Gazprom Zarubezhneftegaz is an affiliate of Russia’s state-controlled gas company Gazprom.  Gazprom has received licenses from the Tajik government to explore four oil-and-gas reserves in Tajikistan: Rengan; Sargazon; Sariqamish; and the Western Shaambari.  The Rengan field, located in the Roudaki district, 20 kilometers from the Tajik capital, has possible gas reserves of 35 billion cubic meters and the Sargazon field, located in Khatlon province, some 150 kilometers of Dushanbe, has possible reserves of 30 billion cubic meters.

Of all the four licensed sites of Gazprom in Tajikistan, Sariqamish is estimated as the most promising. We will recall that during his visit to Dushanbe, the Gazprom top manager Aleksei Miller noted on December 7, 2010 that on the basis of the seismic surveys they have conducted they understand that the estimated reserves of the Sariqamish field is 60 billion cubic meters of gas.  According to him, this amount is enough to supply Tajikistan for 50 years.

According to expert estimates, the aggregate raw-materials resources of the oil and gas bearing areas in Tajikistan amount to about 1,000 billion tons of reference fuel.  At the same time, production work at oil and gas fields require considerable expenditure, since hydrocarbon deposits occur at depths ranging from 6.5 to 8 kilometers.