DUSHANBE, October 26, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- Joint-stock company (JSC) Tojiktransgaz (Tajik natural-gas distributor) plans to pay off its debt to Uztransgaz (Uzbek natural-gas supplier) already today.

The source at Tojiktransgaz says they have to pay the remaining 200,000 U.S. dollars of US$2.5 million in arrears Tojiktransgaz has owed to Uztransgaz.  “We will also make prepayment a US$700,000 prepayment and I hope the sides will come to an agreement on increasing Uzbek gas shipments to Tajikistan starting from tomorrow,” he added.

Tajikistan now receives only 12,000 cubic meters of Uzbek gas per hour and the Uzbek gas is distributed to the industrial enterprises only.

According to the Tojiktransgaz top managers, European price of one cubic meter of natural gas for the fourth quarter is set at US$253.86, which is US$3.00 more than the price for third quarter.

We will recall that Tajikistan was supposed to buy 250 million cubic meters of natural gas from Uzbekistan this year.  The gas prices vary quarterly depending on the world trends and Tajikistan must make prepayments every ten days.