UZBEKISTAN - The Gas Market.

The use of natural gas in Uzbekistan dates back to the 1960s, when most of the supplies came from the Soviet system. But local consumption was limited to areas near the Soviet system of gas pipelines crossing the Central Asian countries. Consumption increased in a big way in the early 1980s, when local production increased. Now, natural gas accounts for over 90% of the country's energy consumption

Now about 3.5m households - almost 95% of the population of more than 25m - have access to piped gas, and an additional 720,000 households use LPG. The government has aimed to connect the remaining residential consumers to the gas network during 2006/07.

The World Bank in its June 2003 report noted that "the access to gas policy was implemented without any metering, and this is proving to be a significant problem - due to low prices...but there is no way to measure actual consumption". Consequently, "losses of 20% or more" were reported, compared to a loss level of 2% or so in well-run gas distribution systems in other countries.