The largest deposit of extra-viscous oil and bitumen in Uzbekistan has been discovered in the Zerafshan valley.

The field was discovered by the joint efforts of Sanoat Energetika Guruhi (SEG) and Kontiki-Exploration. It was called “Yangi Uzbekiston” (“New Uzbekistan”).

The field’s bituminous oil reserves are estimated at almost 100 million tons. The maximum annual production level is projected at 1 million tons by 2025, provided that 1,500 wells per year are drilled here. To ensure the level of bituminous oil production, it is planned to drill 1,500 wells per year.

Drilling of the first exploration well was started on May 15, 2021. Drilling operations are carried out on the border of Samarkand and Navoi regions, the depth of appraisal and development wells is from 400 to 750 meters. During drilling, gravelstone and sandstone strata of the Albian, Cenomanian and Turonian ages were uncovered. All of them turned out to be saturated with oil, extra-viscous oil and bitumen.

It is expected that the Yangi Uzbekiston field will become one of the most high-tech in Central Asia. In the next 12 years, it is planned to invest $2.5 billion in its development.

For the production of hydrocarbons, SEG has attracted a number of international oilfield service companies to the project, including:

• McDANIEL (Canada) – geological survey, selection of technologies, development strategy and feasibility study;
• BYIS Manufacturing (USA) – steam cycle well treatment technology, industrial steam generation;
• O’NEILL Industries (USA) – a steam cycle well treatment technology that provides for the generation and injection of steam together with carbon dioxide, nitrogen and surfactants;
• GenOil (Canada) – development of technology for processing bituminous oil into “synthetic” oil, technology licensor;
• Energy and Engineering (Russia) – basic design of the technology for processing bituminous oil into “synthetic” oil;
• Veraton I.T.C. (Russia) – technology of hydrogen thermobarochemical impact;
• Kazan Federal University (Russia) – petrophysical studies of core, development of in situ combustion technology.

Shokir Fayzullaev, General Director of Sanoat Energetika Guruhi, noted that the discovery of the field is part of the company’s strategy to increase oil production to 1.6 million tons by 2030.

“Today we were able to increase production from 425 to 500 thousand tons per year. The development of the Yangi Uzbekistan field is guaranteed to lead to a significant increase in this figure. Thus, Uzbekistan in the near future will be able to reduce imported crude oil and produce processed products from its own raw materials,”- Fayzullaev explained.