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No hydrocarbon deposit has been found at the Ustyurt plateau, and the joint exploration project run by Uzbekneftegaz, Azerbaijan’s SOCAR and Britain’s BP remains firmly in its geological survey phase — a point Uzbekneftegaz chief geologist Nodir Muhiddinov felt compelled to stress at a press conference on 27 October. “No deposit has been opened there yet. I ask that this be understood correctly,” he said, cautioning against treating preliminary estimates as confirmed reserves.
Seismic surveys have now been completed across more than 3,000 square kilometres, and field work on all six investment blocks in Karakalpakstan — Boyterak, Terengquduq, Birkori, Kharoy, Karakalpak and Kulboy — wrapped up in September. The data are currently being reprocessed and subjected to geological analysis. One exploration well is planned for next year, and only its results will determine whether commercially viable oil and gas reserves exist and whether extracting them makes economic sense.
Deep Targets, Extreme Conditions
The project’s prospective targets lie at depths exceeding 5,000 metres — significantly deeper than the 3,000–3,500 metres at which Uzbekneftegaz historically made its discoveries. At those depths, reservoir pressure can reach 1,000 atmospheres and temperatures 200 degrees Celsius, requiring specialised equipment that only a handful of companies worldwide can supply. Muhiddinov acknowledged that this pushes up both exploration and eventual production costs substantially, though he said the cost of the exploration well itself has not yet been determined. The cost of seismic work completed to date is known, he added, without disclosing the figure.
SOCAR is acting as operator during the exploration phase. BP formally joined the project in May 2026, after which the parties’ equity shares were redistributed, though the source material does not specify the exact percentages. In June 2026, Uzbekneftegaz chairman Abduğani Sanginov met BP leadership in Baku and proposed accelerating the timeline, with drilling to begin by end-2027. The parties also discussed compressing the schedule for geophysical data processing and subsequent exploration stages; a work plan through 2029 has been drawn up.
High Stakes for a Declining Producer
The urgency behind the project is not hard to read. Muhiddinov disclosed at the same press conference that more than 80 percent of reserves at some of Uzbekneftegaz’s largest existing fields have already been extracted, and new wells at those ageing deposits are not fully compensating for the natural decline in output. Ustyurt represents the company’s main hope for reversing that trajectory.
Early projections aired on Uzbekistan 24 television in July 2025 — before BP’s entry — put potential reserves across the six blocks at up to 100 million tonnes of oil and 35 billion cubic metres of natural gas, with possible annual oil output of up to five million tonnes, roughly 2.5 times Uzbekistan’s oil import volume at the time. The Energy Ministry said at that point that a successful project could cover the country’s oil needs for 25 years and direct extracted gas primarily to the domestic market. Total investment was estimated at close to two billion dollars. Muhiddinov was careful to distance himself from those figures: they are preliminary forecasts, not certified geological reserves, and cannot be refined until the exploration well is drilled and analysed.
The production-sharing agreement covering the six Karakalpakstan blocks was signed in July 2025 between the Energy Ministry, Uzbekneftegaz and SOCAR. The original deal envisaged at least 1,000 square kilometres of 3D seismic work and a minimum of one exploration well within five years. With seismic fieldwork now complete and drilling scheduled for 2026–2027, the project is broadly on that timeline — though the ground beneath Ustyurt has yet to yield any confirmation that the investment will pay off.