Sasol, Petronas studying fuels plant in Uzbekistan

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Sasol Ltd. and Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. are studying a possible gas-to-fuels plant in Uzbekistan that could be bigger than Sasol’s Qatar facility, the largest such plant in the world, Bloomberg reported.

Sasol is in talks with Petronas and an unidentified local gas company, said Lean Strauss, a general manager at Johannesburg-based Sasol, in a speech on Monday, 9 March 2009. Sasol may be able to report progress on the project within the next six months, he said.

“It could be about 40,000 barrels a day,” Strauss said in an interview. The Qatari plant, in which Sasol has a 49% stake, has the capacity to produce 34,000 barrels of oil equivalents per day. The rest of the plant is owned by state- owned Qatar Petroleum.

Uzbekistan will soon become a net oil importer, boosting the need for local fuel production, Strauss said.