The corporate newspaper of the company “Neftyaniye Vedomosti” (Oil News), the purchased stake in PSA earlier was owned by Malaysian oil and gas company Petronas Carigali Overseas, which exited the project. Petronas exited the international consortium in May 2011, saying that it boosted works in other projects in Uzbekistan. So, share of Lukoil in Aral project reached 26.6%.

The PSA for the Aral block was signed in August 2006 for 35 years and took effect in January 2007. The PSA was signed in Auguest 2006. The project is implemented by Uzbekneftegaz National Holding Company, LUKOIL Overseas, CNPC International (China), and KNOC Aral (Korea).

In line with the PSA, Uzbekistan will possess 50% of product, while consortium participants will receive 10% each in the initial stage of the project.

Aral license block is located in northern-western Uzbekistan and includes the Uzbek part of the Aral Sea, as well as bordering land and transit zones. During the project implementation in 2007-2009, over 3,000 meters of seismic works were conducted at dry land, sea and transit zone. In the result, six perspective structures were revealed, documented and prepared to deep drilling. These are Western Aral, Umid, Aq-Tepa and Shagala.

In the result, a deposit of natural gas with preliminary reserves of 11 billion cubic meters was opened in Western Aral in spring 2010. Besides, six perspective structures were revealed, four of which were. The sides invested US$110 million to the project.

In August 2011, the programme on further work of project, including drilling of exploration and appraisal wells with the minimal volume of investments of US$17 million, was approved.