Uzbekistan’s energy needs lock it into Russian orbit

Moscow is going to provide Tashkent with nuclear power, gas, and maybe even electricity. How much loyalty will it seek in return?

Uzbekistan has for years been bedevilled by an electricity shortage crisis that experts have warned will get worse in future.

And then along came Russia.

During his state visit to Tashkent on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw the signing of an agreement for state-owned Rosatom to build a small nuclear plant in Uzbekistan.

His Uzbek counterpart, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, was ecstatic.

“This is a critically important project for us when we think about the prospects for Uzbekistan emerging into a new stage of development,” he said.

The clock on this was set ticking in December 2017, when Russia and Uzbekistan agreed to cooperate on the development of nuclear energy for civilian purposes. Less than a year later, Putin travelled to Uzbekistan to take part in a ceremony marking the start to surveying work on finding a location in which to build a plant.

Putin and Mirziyoyev together pressed a giant white button, hugged, and then went their separate ways.

This week’s deal is not quite as ambitious as what was envisioned back then, although it may well lay the ground for larger undertakings ahead.

According to reporting by Reuters, Rosatom will build six 55-megawatt reactors with a total installed capacity of 330 megawatts.

A 2020 government forecast about electricity production capabilities by 2030 envisioned the construction of nuclear power plants with a total of 2,400 megawatts of capacity. This would have accounted for 8.3 percent of the country’s power output, the document stated.

That target will not be met.

But Russia is plugging the gap in other ways too.

As Putin said while sitting alongside Mirziyoyev, work is now underway to increase the amount of gas that can be carried annually through the Central Asia-Centre pipeline to 11 billion cubic metres by next year.

“The winter before last in Uzbekistan there was a complicated and critical situation due to the anomalous cold weather. I remember how Shavkat Miromonovich [Mirziyoyev] was worried and was looking, of course, for every way possible to solve this problem,” Putin said, unsubtly underscoring the delicate domestic political stakes at play.

The reversal of the flow of Central Asia-Centre drives home just how deep a hole Uzbekistan is in. The pipeline was once used to send gas north. Since October, fuel has been going south from Russia under a two-year deal between Uzbekistan and Gazprom to import 9 million cubic metres of gas daily, which translates to 2.8 billion cubic metres per year.

Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilyov even suggested in passing in an interview to a Russian state television journalist that there might be scope in future for Russia to sell Uzbekistan electricity.

If Mirziyoyev feels any discomfort at pivoting to such intense reliance on a single partner – and one with a track record of using energy supplies as a cudgel for ensuring loyalty – he shows no signs of it.

But the hard reality is that he has little choice.

According to Development Strategy Centre, a government-friendly think tank in Tashkent, the demand for electricity, which is fuelled by an expanding population and growing economic activity, is expected to outstrip supply by up to 7 percent in 2030.  

The electricity grid is aging and leaks power. Something on the order of $30 billion in investments will be needed to fix that problem.

While money can always be found, time is less forgiving.

Every winter of power outages brings with it the spectre of mounting public discontent. Pending a succession or transition plan, Mirziyoyev appears eager to maintain his grip on power for the indefinite future and he does not need to cope with anger over a crisis he is unable to address.

Timely Russian interventions will go far toward keeping those worries at bay.

Moscow’s hope is that engagement over this existential question can help it lock Uzbekistan into its economic orbit. Mirziyoyev’s office has made reassuring noises on this front. In a press release issued following his talks with Putin, he said their governments are devising a blueprint to increase annual bilateral trade to $30 billion.

That is a startling figure when considering Russia and Uzbekistan did one-third of that amount of trade in 2023.