Uzbekneftegaz’s press service said that the JGS delegation was headed by Senior Manager of Regional Sales Department Hiroaki Yano.

During the meeting, the sides considered issues of developing cooperation in oil shale field’s development in Uzbekistan.

In mid 2010, JGS and Technopian Corporation have signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Uzbek government and Uzbekneftegaz on joint development of oil shale in Uzbekistan.

Within six months, the Japanese companies will be studying geological materials provided by the Uzbek side. After that, the sides will consider establishment of a joint venture to develop oil fields.

The perspective reserves of oil shales in Uzbekistan have been estimated at the volume of 47 billion tonnes. International experience of processing oil shale (Sweden, Poland, Bulgaria, China and other) confirms their suitability as an alternative source of hydrocarbons.

The Institute of common and non-organic chemistry of Uzbekistan Science Academy managed to produce fractional distillation of two tar samples taken from two oil shale deposits Baysun and Sangruntau. The institute developed mass balance of the diesel fraction extracted from the tar, which show that the yield of diesel fraction of the oil shale tar is 30% for Sangruntau and 22% for Baysun.

Given that the yield from pyrolysis reaction of oil shale is 10-12%, the 100 kg of oil shale deposit Baysun can make 2.2% of the diesel fraction, and Sangruntau - 3.3%. The institute also identified presence of small quantities of rare-earth, rare, non-ferrous and precious metals in solutions of sulfuric and leaching after shale processing.

Uzbekistan plans to organize production of complex processing of oil share on the base of Sangruntau deposit in Navoi region with the cost of US$150 million. According to preliminary date, the processing complex will produce 300,000 tonnes of oil products and 500,000 tonnes of aromatic hydrocarbons a year.