It has become possible to constantly increase the amount of production thanks to the step-by-step commissioning of 16 of 23 planned gas wells, Valeriy Dronin, head of the company’s department for extracting and processing gas, has told journalists.

"Since the gas deposit was put into operation in November 2007, the average monthly production has increased four fold and reached the level of almost 200m cu. m. The designed capacity of the production of the Hauzak deposit makes 3bn cu. m. of gas per year, and we plan to reach this level this year already," Dronin said.

[Passage omitted: LUKoil and the Uzbek oil and gas company have signed a PSA on the Qandim-Hauzak-Shodi gas project]

Source: ITAR-TASS, BBC Monitoring Central Asia.