A large exploration block is taking shape in the underexplored Fergana basin in former Soviet Central Asia between the Caspian and Tarim basins.
The Tajikistan government in early July awarded a license covering more than 7,800 sq km to Somon Oil, owned 90% by DWM Petroleum AG. DWM is wholly owned by Manas Petroleum Corp., Baar, Switzerland.
The Tajik license is adjacent to the northern boundary of Manas’ six Tuzluk, Kyrgyzstan, licenses that total 3,152 sq km.
Manas said it is in farmout discussions with major oil companies of interests in the Tajik and Kyrgyz licenses.
The Tajik license has a number of prospects and leads determined by Soviet seismic acquisition in the 1970s-80s, and a UK consultant said 10 known structures on the Kyrgyz licenses may contain a most likely 1.2 billion bbl of recoverable light oil, Manas said.
Manas’s Tajik license is reportedly for exploration in the Bobojon Ghafurov, Jabbor Rasulov, and Ghonchi districts of the Sughd region. In particular, Manas reportedly will explore the Obcha-i Qalacha and Navobod fields for oil and gas.
In a statement, Manas noted that the US Geological Survey estimates 3 billion bbl of recoverable oil is contained in the Fergana basin’s underthrust structures.
Tajik energy needs
The award is the latest effort by the Tajik government to boost the country’s domestic energy supplies.
Impoverished Tajikistan, which relies on hydroelecticity for most of its power, has been hard-hit by an energy crisis this year. Neighboring suppliers Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have cut its supplies of gas or electricity for lack of payment.
To overcome its energy shortage, the country’s newly elected president, Emomali Rahmonov, last November vowed: “We will also step up geological prospecting, developing Tajikistan’s vast coal reserves and gas and oil extraction.”
Tajikistan has reserves of coal estimated at 4 billion tonnes, but output is just 70,000 tonnes/year. In May, American firm AES Corp., Russia’s Unified Energy System (UES), Kazakhstan’s KiTaKa, and a Chinese machinery company expressed interest in a project to develop the Fan Yagnob deposit in the Sughd region and to construct a coal-fired electric power station there.
In April, interest in Tajikistan’s oil and gas potential spiked when Tajik Energy Minister Jurabek Nurmahmadov said substantial reserves of oil and gas discovered in Afghanistan might be part of a trend leading into Tajikistan.
“For the time-being, this is just a theory, but in practice this is excellent news for us,” Nurmahdov said of the Afghan discoveries.
Local media reported that exploration in Afghanistan’s Balkh, Samangan, Konduz, Sheberghan, and Sar-e Pol provinces revealed oil reserves of 1.6 billion bbl in the Afghan-Tajik basin, along with 15.7 trillion cu m of gas reserves in the Amu Darya River basin.
Nurmahdov said, “If all this information is corroborated, then we simply need to prospect and extract gas in the territory of our country...because Afghan reserves are likely to have the same unified source with Tajik reserves in the south of the country.”
Gazprom’s interest
Around the same time, OAO Gazprom Chief Executive Aleksey Miller visited Tajikistan for the second time in a year, saying that his firm hoped to find similar reserves.
Barring such large discoveries, Miller said with “certainty” that “on the basis of information we possess, that the prospected reserves can completely meet all the country’s needs.”
Since then, Gazprom subsidiary Zarubezhneftegaz said it will start 2D seismic exploration work at the Rengan and Sargazon prospects in Tajikistan.
Gazprom was issued a license to explore the Sargazon and Rengan prospects, with gas reserves estimated at 30 billion cu m and 35 billion cu m, respectively, on Dec. 13, 2006. Over the next 5 years Gazprom said it plans to carry out exploration at the Rengan, Sargazon, Sarykamysh, and Western Shaambary fields.
In March Gazprom’s Research Institute of Natural Gases and Gas Technologies (Vniigaz Ltd.) was said to be preparing a feasibility study for geological exploration and a gradual program for geological exploration work at the oil and gas prospects. The work is to include an evaluation of reserves and possible production volumes.
Meanwhile, in June, Russia’s OOO Ecowave Technology, which specializes in emergency protection for pipelines, has been contracted to perform diagnostic work on Tajikistan’s pipeline systems-including oil and gas pipelines-in the fourth quarter.