AKIPRESS.COM - Russian energy company Lukoil said on Saturday it ​launched new facilities at Gissar cluster of fields in Uzbekistan.

President of LUKOIL Vagit Alekperov and the Prime Minister of Uzbekistan Abdulla Aripov participated in the official opening ceremony, Lukoil said in a release. 

Commissioning of the new operational facilities at South-West Gissar project, including a gas treatment plant with the nominal capacity of 4.4 billion cubic meters a year, a gas pre-treatment unit and six gas gathering stations, made it possible to bring gas production at Gissar cluster of fields up to the planned level of 5 billion cubic meters a year.

More than half of total volumes of natural gas, produced at the company's foreign projects, are recovered in Uzbekistan.

As of early September, 2017, the cumulative production at projects, managed by LUKOIL in the country, reached 45 billion cubic meters. The company is the largest foreign investor in the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Lukoil said it plans to boost its gas output in Uzbekistan to as much 16 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year by 2020, from 9 bcm that it planned to produce in 2017, Reuters reports.

It said that by 2020 it expected to produce 8 bcm per year at the Kandym group of fields, 5 bcm per year at Gissar project and 3 bcm per year at Khauzak field per year in the Central Asian country.