Uzbekistan has turned from a seller into a buyer of Gazprom's gas, according to the reports and the memorandum of the new issue of Eurobonds of the Russian concern, the text of which was reviewed by Interfax.

Uzbekistan supplied 3.8 billion cubic meters of gas to Gazprom in 2018, increased supplies to 4.9 billion cubic meters in 2019, and stopped them in 2020. The latest memorandum confirms that there were no deliveries of Uzbek gas to the Russian concern in the first quarter of 2021.

Moreover, since 2020, Gazprom has started supplying Turkmen gas to Uzbekistan: 0.9 billion cubic meters were delivered in 2020, and 1.5 billion cubic meters were delivered in the first quarter of 2021 (there were no deliveries for the same period of 2020), according to the memorandum.

It is noteworthy that in the first quarter of 2021, Uzbekistan bought three times more "blue fuel"from Gazprom(Turkmen gas) than it was able to export to China (0.54 billion cubic meters).

"The Central Asian countries are developing very rapidly now. First of all, this concerns Uzbekistan. And we are seeing a big increase in consumption in this country. Therefore, of course, gas purchases are reduced to one degree or another, because the state directs gas for its own needs, if we are talking about Uzbekistan," Elena Burmistrova, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Board, General Director of Gazprom Export LLC, commented on the situation with Uzbek gas in May.

The supply of Turkmen gas to the Russian company resumed after a long break in 2019 from 4 billion cubic meters, in 2020 the volume increased to 4.7 billion cubic meters (including gas for Uzbekistan). In the first quarter of 2021, gas purchases in Turkmenistan increased to 2.2 billion cubic meters from 1.3 billion cubic meters a year earlier, the memorandum shows.

Gazprom's purchases of gas in Kazakhstan are also decreasing - from 12.6 billion cubic meters in 2018 to 11.6 billion cubic meters in 2019 and 5.7 billion cubic meters in 2020. For the first quarter of 2021, deliveries fell to 0.6 billion cubic meters (from 2.2 billion cubic meters for the same period in 2020), according to the memorandum.