Concern at Switch to Gas-Powered Cars
Concern at Switch to Gas-Powered Cars
A plan to convert thousands of vehicles from petrol to compressed gas has caused some bemusement in Uzbekistan, where there are constant shortages of the fuel because of the emphasis on exports.
In early March, the government adopted a five-year plan to convert cars to run on compressed liquid natural gas. LNG, instead of petrol, at a total cost of some 320 million US dollars. By 2012, the government is looking to convert around 188,000 vehicles, equivalent to 15 per cent of the total number.
Analyst Muzaffar Nazarov says the move comes as no surprise, and is similar to the situation in Russia, where businesses campaigned for a conversion campaign.
“It became clear during last year’s informal meetings between Uzbek officials and Russian businessmen that a programme like this would be adopted. The [Russian] model is applicable to the Uzbek fuel industry, and I assume Uzbekistan is counting on Russian investment too,” he said.
Evidence that Nazarov is right about this comes from the part of the programme which talks about plans to attract 100 million US dollars in foreign loans.
Other NBCentralAsia commentators point out that from this year, the Uzbek government has committed to increasing gas exports to Russia from nine to 13 billion cubic metres a year. Since this will be an added burden on Uzbekistan’s gas production, it is hard to understand why the authorities want to convert vehicles to run on gas.
“It is not clear where all this LNG will come from,” said an NBCentralAsia source at the opposition Committee for National Salvation. “Will gas extraction be increased, or will domestic consumption be reduced?”
The source suspects the conversion scheme is no more than a PR campaign designed to explain away the frequent cuts in gas supplies.
A specialist on economic affairs working for an international organisation based in Tashkent took a similar line, suggesting that “the government may be trying to divert public attention from the systematic outages by saying the gas is being delivered to the refueling stations”.
Many drivers will have to pay the costs of converting their cars themselves, and this may lead to protests. Such demonstrations are already becoming more frequent as the provinces suffer winter gas shortages.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
In early March, the government adopted a five-year plan to convert cars to run on compressed liquid natural gas. LNG, instead of petrol, at a total cost of some 320 million US dollars. By 2012, the government is looking to convert around 188,000 vehicles, equivalent to 15 per cent of the total number.
Analyst Muzaffar Nazarov says the move comes as no surprise, and is similar to the situation in Russia, where businesses campaigned for a conversion campaign.
“It became clear during last year’s informal meetings between Uzbek officials and Russian businessmen that a programme like this would be adopted. The [Russian] model is applicable to the Uzbek fuel industry, and I assume Uzbekistan is counting on Russian investment too,” he said.
Evidence that Nazarov is right about this comes from the part of the programme which talks about plans to attract 100 million US dollars in foreign loans.
Other NBCentralAsia commentators point out that from this year, the Uzbek government has committed to increasing gas exports to Russia from nine to 13 billion cubic metres a year. Since this will be an added burden on Uzbekistan’s gas production, it is hard to understand why the authorities want to convert vehicles to run on gas.
“It is not clear where all this LNG will come from,” said an NBCentralAsia source at the opposition Committee for National Salvation. “Will gas extraction be increased, or will domestic consumption be reduced?”
The source suspects the conversion scheme is no more than a PR campaign designed to explain away the frequent cuts in gas supplies.
A specialist on economic affairs working for an international organisation based in Tashkent took a similar line, suggesting that “the government may be trying to divert public attention from the systematic outages by saying the gas is being delivered to the refueling stations”.
Many drivers will have to pay the costs of converting their cars themselves, and this may lead to protests. Such demonstrations are already becoming more frequent as the provinces suffer winter gas shortages.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
