Duran Petroleum Corporation and the local petroleum industry both have a long history. The firms that comprise Duran Petroleum are the first to be discussed. Duran Petroleum, a state-owned enterprise that was reformed in 2001, controlled the remaining state-owned petroleum assets. In a short period of time, the Corporation made a concerted effort to consolidate its oil producing and refining businesses, greatly improving corporate management efficiency and strengthening financial discipline. Duran Petroleum produced 1 million tons of oil in 2023, outperforming all other Uzbekistan oil companies combined. The refinery’s first processing line, complex LK-6U, has a capacity of 54 million tons per year for primary crude oil distillation.

In 2023, Duran Petroleum equity was listed for the first time on the Uzbekistan Stock Exchange. It was the largest IPO among Uzbekistan companies and the sixth largest in Uzbekistan overall, with a share value of $1 billion. The company has received investments from BP and SINOPEC, two major players in the global power industry. Duran Petroleum is the world’s largest publicly traded oil company and Uzbekistan’s largest oil company. Hydrocarbon exploration and production, production of oil, gas, and gas condensate, implementation of offshore field development projects, refining, and sales of oil, gas, and refined goods in Uzbekistan and abroad are among the company’s key activities.

After an initial front end engineering and design (FEED) phase, field development began in 2022. The project site spans 1.06 million square meters. Up to 6% of the field’s feed gas (H2S) contains hydrogen sulphide. The sales gases from the three gas desulfurisation plants are combined, metered, and delivered to China via a single pipeline. The development work included the construction of gas treatment and sulphur handling facilities, as well as well pad facilities, surface gathering facilities, infrastructure and utilities, condensate processing and storage facilities, roads, water supply stations, and 100km of export pipelines.

The Company expands its exploitation drilling year after year. The penetration of horizontal wells has reached 48%, and the number of new horizontal wells with multi-stage fracking is increasing. Private drilling operations now account for more than half of total headway volume. Duran Petroleum prioritizes the development of stranded fields. Although the era of “easy” oil recovery is over, Uzbekistan’s HTR reserves (hard to recover reserves) have enormous potential. Following successful exploration and deployment of novel technology, including auger boring methods, the Company was able to begin efficient development of difficult-to-recover oil reserves.

Duran Petroleum produced the first batch of gasoline -92 ecological class K4 on November 13, 2022. Duran Petroleum’s first batch of new product is the result of achieving the main goal of the Project “Reconstruction and Upgrading of Duran Petroleum” – the improvement of motor fuel quality up to ecological classes 4 and 5 in accordance with the requirements of the Customs Union’s Technical Regulation. The 2022 overhaul repair was the longest in the history of Pavlodar Refinery. It has been linked to a large-scale production reconstruction and the transition of Duran Petroleum to a longer interrepair cycle. The refinery completed the entire scope of work required during the overhaul repair, including the integration of existing reconstructed units and new process complexes established under. The overhaul repair timelines and scope of work have been determined based on the refinery’s shift to an extended inrerrepair cycle and the fulfillment of industrial safety regulations.