In January-May 2026, Uzbekistan imported $724.7 million worth of natural gas, the State Statistics Committee said in a report.
This is 84.1% more than the figure for the same period last year. According to the State Statistics Committee's updated data, gas imports in January-May 2025 totaled $393.6 million.
However, a report published a year earlier had put gas import volumes for that same period at $285.5 million. This means the difference between the updated and original figures for January-May 2025 amounts to $108.1 million.
According to the latest data, "blue fuel" worth $167.6 million was delivered to Uzbekistan in January, $34.6 million in February, $158.3 million in March, $147.8 million in April, and $216.4 million in May. May's figure was the highest since the start of the year.
Natural gas exports over the five months fell to $202.9 million, down 29.5% from last year's figure for the same period of $288 million.
According to the statistics, no deliveries were made in January, and exports resumed in February at $7.1 million. In March, deliveries reached $29.4 million, in April $92.7 million, and in May $73.5 million.
According to China's General Administration of Customs, Uzbekistan exported $139.6 million worth of natural gas to China in January-May. Small deliveries worth $1.09 million were recorded in January, followed by a two-month pause. China's imports of Uzbek gas resumed in April, at $44.97 million, and reached $93.6 million in May — the largest monthly volume of gas deliveries from Uzbekistan to China since the start of the year.
According to Chinese customs data, Uzbekistan supplied China with $264.9 million worth of gas in January-May 2025 — 1.9 times more than in the same period of 2026. Deliveries that year were made in all five months.
Uzbekistan's gas exports were previously directed almost entirely to China. Gazeta.uz has repeatedly noted that Chinese customs figures for Uzbek gas imports tend to run higher than the figures published by the Uzbek side.
For example, for full-year 2025, China put its gas imports from Uzbekistan at $773.3 million. Yet according to Uzbek statistics, Uzbekistan's total natural gas exports — not just to China — came to $628.8 million. The discrepancy amounted to $144.5 million.
Over the six years from 2020 to 2025 as a whole, the gap between the two countries' gas trade data reached $687.2 million.
For January-May 2026, the discrepancy was again significant — but this time in the opposite direction: the Uzbek side reported a larger export volume than the Chinese side. The difference came to $63.3 million.
In theory, some of the gas could have been shipped to other countries, such as Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan. However, according to Kyrgyz statistics, no Uzbek gas was delivered there in January-April. Tajikistan does not disclose its gas import volumes, but in previous years they have been negligible.
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