According to the ADB website, the Board of Directors will consider project and allocation of resources to the venture in early 2012.

The ADB is planning to allocate US$125 million of loan and US$275 million of political risk guarantee to the UzKorGasChemical project.

The ADB assistance will finance, on a limited recourse basis, the engineering, procurement, and construction of gas wells, connecting pipeline, gas separation plant, ethylene cracker, polymer process plant, and associated utilities and offsite installations.

According to the ADB, the $4 billion project is a strategic investment partnership between Uzbekistan and Korean companies, following cooperative targets set by the governments of Korea and Uzbekistan in 2006.

The project includes developing 2,300 kilotons per annum (KTPA) gas production wells, constructing product pipeline and delivery infrastructure, and constructing a gas separation plant and chemical complex. The gas/chemical plant will produce 1,700 KTPA of natural gas for sale in the domestic market, and 380 KTPA of high density polyethylene and 80 KTPA of polypropylene for sale in the export market.

In February 2008, Uzbekneftegaz and South Korean consortium created a joint venture UzKorGasChemical for construction of the Ustyurt Gas-Chemical Complex on the base of Surgil deposit. The consortium included Kogas, Lotte Daesan Petrochemical Corp. (in 2009, it was replaced with Honam Petrochemical), LG International Corp., SK Gas and STX Energy. The preliminary project cost was US$1.85 billion. Later, its cost was revised to US$2.4 billion. According to latest estimates, the project cost is US$3.3 billion.

In 2009, Samsung Engineering (South Korea) and Uzbekneftegaz’s UzLITIneftegaz developed preliminary feasibility study of technological part of the project, which envisaged construction of the complex with the capacity of 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas and production of 400,000 polyethylene and 100,000 tonnes of polypropylene.

Uzbekneftegaz is conducting gas-field construction of Surgil field with its own forces. The field will annually supply 3 billion cubic meters of gas to the Ustyurt Gas-Chemical Complex. Another 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas will be supplied to the complex from other fields in Ustyurt region.

Surgil field was opened in March 2006 and now it is developed by Uzbekneftegaz. Its reserves, according to the Uzbek side, make up about 120 billion cubic meters of gas.