Plugging the gap: How one company is wrestling with ageing fields to combat methane leaks and help ease fast-growing former Soviet republic’s energy demands

Uzbek oil producer Saneg is celebrating a major milestone in its push to revive production from its ageing assets, after completing the first phase of a programme to reduce methane emissions and flaring at its fields throughout the country.

Saneg is the largest privately held oil producer in Uzbekistan and, to help meet the country’s increasing energy demands, set out plans to boost its oil production by 20% to 14,300 barrels per day.

This was despite most of its fields being ageing, depleted assets, including some the government handed to the company after showing a major decline in output.

As well as operating several oil and gas fields, Saneg also manages the country’s largest refinery, Fergana, a Soviet era facility that once boasted a nameplate processing capacity of more than 120,000 barrels per day, and which now handles only about 40,000 bpd.

As part of its output drive, Saneg earlier this year introduced a methane leak detection and repair scheme for its fields.

Saneg deputy executive director Azizbek Nazarov told Upstream the company was the first in Uzbekistan to have started such a scheme, the first phase of which aims to reduce methane emissions by about 4.6 million cubic metres per annum.

He estimates Saneg has already prevented the release of about 732,000 cubic metres of methane between 20 January and 31 March and anticipates it will meet the reduction target in January 2025.

The programme’s second phase is set to start in July and involves upgrading a pipeline network at the company’s oilfields to help gather methane and associated gases that will be pumped into the country’s transmission network instead of being flared.

This phase is scheduled to complete in July 2025 and aims to reduce methane flaring by more than 72.2 MMcm per annum, according to Nazarov.

Under a third phase due to start in September this year, Saneg will proceed with plans to capture and flare methane vapours at oil separation and storage tanks.

This effort aims to prevent around 9.6 MMcm per annum of gas being leaked into the atmosphere, with the target also anticipated to be achieved within about one year.

In total, the programme aims to enable Saneg to reduce emissions to the overall equivalent of about 425,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, with methane chosen as the prime target because it is a significantly more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide itself, Nazarov said.

Once completed, the programme will remove all identified leaks of methane and other hydrocarbon gases across Saneg’s oilfields, and about 70% of emissions of methane at the company’s oil and gas processing facilities.

The company expects the programme will require estimated investments of €20 million ($21.6 million), with €4 million already spent under the first phase, Nazarov said.

Saneg said in a statement that its emission reduction programme has been prepared in close cooperation with European consultants Vema Carbon of Switzerland and ICA-Finance of Norway.

Nazarov said Saneg has no immediate plans to sponsor the creation of an emission trading platform in Uzbekistan, but remains in consultation with the German Emissions Trading Authority to monetise the reduction via the sale and trading of carbon credits.