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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kyrgyzstan
Index
Unlike its neighbors Kazakstan and Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan has no
significant exploited reserves of oil or natural gas; in 1994 petroleum
production was 88,000 tons, and natural gas production was 39 million
cubic meters. Although substantial coal deposits are present, in the
mid-1990s experts described Kyrgyzstan's coal industry as in a state of
collapse. In the early 1990s, only four of the fourteen state-owned coal
mines were considered economically viable, and little coal came from
privately owned mines. Between 1991 and 1993, brown coal production
decreased by 50 percent (to 959,000 tons), and black coal production
decreased by 53 percent (to 712,000 tons). The domestic price of
conventional fuels rose slightly above world levels after the much cheaper
energy-sharing arrangements of the Soviet era ended. (In 1992 oil and gas
import costs were 50 percent of the total state budget, compared with 10
percent in 1991.) In 1994 some 39 percent of Kyrgyzstan's total import
expenditures went for the purchase of conventional fuels, contributing an
estimated US$100 million to the country's trade imbalance (see Foreign
Trade, this ch.). Energy consumption, meanwhile, has declined sharply
since 1991, and experts do not expect it to return to its 1990 level.
Management of national energy and fuel policy is distributed among
several ministries and other state agencies--an arrangement that has
hindered efficient acquisition and distribution. Distribution of heat and
electricity is the responsibility of the state-run Kyrgyzstan National
Energy Holding Company, and natural gas purchases are managed by the
Kyrgyzstan Natural Gas Administration (Kyrgyzgas). Oil, gas, and coal
exploration is the responsibility of the State Geological Commission
(Goskomgeologiya). Natural gas, provided by the Republic of Turkmenistan
in the Soviet era, now comes mainly from neighboring Uzbekistan. Coal,
used to heat households and to fuel some thermoelectric plants, is mainly
received from Kazakstan in a barter arrangement for electrical power.
Kazakstan's coal is preferred because the heaviest demand in Kyrgyzstan is
concentrated in the north, and Kyrgyzstan's remaining coal mines are in
the south, from which transportation is problematic.
For these reasons, existing thermoelectric stations have been
deemphasized in the 1990s in favor of expanded hydroelectric production.
Thus, in 1994 thermoelectric power production dropped by 46 percent while
hydroelectric production rose by 30 percent. These statistics enabled the
national energy sector to show a modest drop of 4 percent in total power
generation in 1994, but district heating, which comes from coal- and
gas-powered combined heat and power plants, suffered heavily from the
transition. Meanwhile, government promotion of electricity brought an
increase of 117 percent in household power use between 1991 and 1994,
although overall household energy consumption declined by 36 percent
during that period. Some aspects of the promotion plan have been
criticized, including the large-scale promotion of electric heat in a
country with poorly insulated houses.
Emphasis on electricity is backed by abundant water power, mainly from
the country's location at the mountain headwaters of the Syrdariya, one of
the two largest rivers in Central Asia. On the Naryn River, chief
tributary of the Syrdariya, a series of hydroelectric stations has been
built, the largest of which is the Kürp-Say Hydroelectric Plant, fed
by the Toktogol Reservoir in central Kyrgyzstan. Other major hydroelectric
plants are located at Atabashin, Alamedin, and Uchkorgon. Such stations
have made possible the net export of electric power, worth an estimated
US$100 million in 1994. That figure was only about half the value of
Kyrgyzstan's 1990 export, however, because demand in neighboring republics
dropped considerably in the early 1990s. The main customer is Kazakstan,
with which power is exchanged through the Central Asian Integrated System.
Only about 10 percent of Kyrgyzstan's hydroelectric power potential and
only about 3 percent of the potential of its smaller streams are currently
being exploited; the Naryn River is estimated to afford an additional
2,200 megawatts of easily accessible rated capacity. Meanwhile, the
Fergana Valley, the only working oil field in the country, has remaining
reserves of 14 million tons of oil that require expensive recovery
tech-nolgy. No serious oil exploration has been done elsewhere, although
the Chu and Ak-Say valleys are believed to be prom-ising.
Data as of March 1996
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