Gulf Oil assesses prospects for a filling station network in Uzbekistan: no decision on the next stage yet

What Uzbekneftegaz reported

The American company Gulf Oil has studied major highways across all regions of Uzbekistan and is currently assessing the economic feasibility of opening a network of filling stations along them. This was announced on October 27 at a press conference by Abrorjon Khudoyberganov, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Uzbekneftegaz for Refining, reports Spot.uz.

What stage the project is at

According to Khudoyberganov, as part of the cooperation, potential hub locations for filling stations have been identified and the necessary documents have been collected. Gulf is calculating the project's efficiency taking into account traffic intensity, the number of existing filling stations and electric vehicles, as well as fuel demand in different regions. “Only after they reach a final decision will a decision be made on moving to the next stage,” the Uzbekneftegaz representative noted. According to him, the terms of the company's equity participation in the project have not yet been determined, and no corresponding decision has been made.

What was known earlier

The project has been under discussion for about a year. In October 2025, Uzbekneftegaz and Gulf Oil signed a memorandum worth $100 million on creating a network of up to 100 filling stations across all regions of the country. In February 2026, Gulf Vice President Craig Kramer said there were plans to open at least 100 filling stations with convenience stores within two years, and reported that the company had received offers from regional governors to acquire about 200 existing filling stations across the country.

Context and what remains unclear

According to information previously published by the Ministry of Energy, the project was to be implemented with foreign investor funding: fuel was to be purchased on the exchange under general terms or imported, without direct supplies from Uzbekneftegaz and without special privileges. Thus, over the year the project has advanced from signing the memorandum to the economic evaluation stage, but key parameters — Uzbekneftegaz's equity participation and the move to the next stage — remain unresolved. Separately, Spot previously wrote that the field in the Ustyurt region has not yet been discovered and is at the geological exploration stage; this topic was mentioned in the same context of publications about the company, but is not directly related to the filling station project.