According to him, while maintaining production at the current level until the end of the year, the total volume for 2020 will be about 7 billion cubic meters.

Zhdanov hopes that such a pessimistic scenario will not prove real, and that production and sales volumes will recover.

“We invested $9.9 billion in the project in Uzbekistan, including administrative expenses. Today, about $8 billion has been compensated,” he added.

LUKOIL’s report stated that the company has reduced gas production in Uzbekistan to about 40% of its design capacity since February due to low gas demand from China, which affected the company’s total hydrocarbon production in the first quarter of 2020.