OREANDA-NEWS. September 26, 2011. President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov met with David Constable, chief executive officer of South Africa’s Sasol, and Dato Shamsul Azhar Abbas, president of Malaysia’s Petronas.

Welcoming the guests, Islam Karimov noted that Uzbekistan considers Sasol and Petronas reliable partners, and highly regards the cooperation with these companies.

Under a joint project currently underway by Uzbekneftgaz national holding company in partnership with Sasol and Petronas, a plant is being constructed in Uzbekistan to generate synthetic liquefied fuel (GTL) from methane produced at Shurtan gas-chemical complex.

The scheme envisions establishment of high-tech innovative capacities unique to CIS and Europe to produce environmentally clean synthetic liquefied fuels, primarily diesel and aircraft kerosene under Euro-IV and Euro-V standards.

Uzbekistan GTL joint venture has completed the basic projecting phase leading to a preliminary feasibility study.

As part of Sasol and Petronas chiefs’ visit to Uzbekistan, a range of documents have been signed to serve as a foundation to shift to the second phase of the scheme that includes detailed engineering projecting and placement of orders for equipment.

During the meeting at the Oqsaroy, the guests expressed sincere gratitude to President Islam Karimov for a warm welcome and stressed their interest in furthering the cooperation with Uzbekistan.

The progress made in materializing the joint projects has also been discussed during the talks, as has consolidation of partnership in investments and high technologies.