DUSHANBE, February 21, 2014, Asia-Plus -- A group of deputies of the Tajikistan’s lower house (Majlisi Namoyandagon) of parliament has drafted a law on oil and gas.

MP Ismoil Talbakov, who is one of authors of this law, says the law will regulate issues related to exploring and rationally developing oil and natural gas deposits, protecting of population’s interests,, ensuring safety of works, etc.

“In the near future, we will submit the law for consideration to the government and after approval it will be submitted for consideration to parliamentarians,” noted Talbakov.  “We are reverting to this draft law already for the second time.  The point is that the government did not endorse the previous draft law on oil and gas because some Tajik officials say that Tajikistan does not have enough oil and gas reserves, and therefore, there is no need for a special law to regulate exploration and development of them.”

According to expert estimates, the aggregate raw-materials resources of the oil and gas bearing areas in Tajikistan amount to about 1,000 billion tons of reference fuel.  At the same time, production work at oil and gas fields require considerable expenditure, since hydrocarbon deposits occur at depths ranging from 6.5 to 8 kilometers.