Today, the first stone of the complex with the cost of US$2.6 billion has been laid in Kungrad district of Karakalpakstan.

President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov and President of the Republic of Korea Lee Myung-bak followed the ceremony in Tashkent over video conference.

On 23 August 2011, Uzbekistan and South Korea signed Tuesday an agreement on construction of gas-chemical plant on the base of the Surgil gas field.

In line with agreement, a consortium of South Korean companies led by Korea Gas Corp. signed contracts with the Uzbek government to develop a gas reserve and build a gas chemical plant in Surgil, near the Aral Sea.

The Ministry of Knowledge Economy of South Korea said that South Korean construction companies won a $2.1 billion deal to build a facility for producing gas and chemical products in Surgil.

Samsung Engineering Co. Ltd., GS Engineering & Construction Corp. and Hyundai Engineering Co. will aim to start construction of the facility next year.

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.