|
Kyrgyzstan
Energy
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
|
