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Abstract Gas fields were developed by the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1970s. Gas infrastructure has deteriorated since their departure. There are attractive business opportunities for developing the natural gas sector. This requires simultaneous development of the upstream fields and facilities, downstream markets, transmission and distribution infrastructure, and the legal/regulatory framework governing gas activity.
Introduction Media attention on Afghanistan focuses on conflict. But commentators have suggested the best way to bring stability to the region is to create a successful economy. There are proven reserves of natural gas in the north of the country, a region that is relatively stable. A fertilizer plant and a small number of residential and commercial customers are currently using gas. Investment to develop the reserves and markets for the gas will provide jobs that begin to stimulate the local economy. The gas itself can be used to generate power that is desperately short in Afghanistan, provide heating for residences, for commercial uses such as bakeries, and potentially as a vehicle fuel (either as compressed natural gas, or as feedstock for a gas-to-liquids plant). This paper discusses the history of gas production in Afghanistan and current activity that is under way to develop the natural gas sector.
History and Present Circumstances The USGS recently estimated the mean undiscovered hydrocarbon resources in the Amu Darya and Afghan-Tajik basins in northern Afghanistan to be in the range of 100 to 1000 billion m (3.5 to 35 TCF) of gas, 0.4 to 3.6 billion barrels of oil and 0.1 to 1.3 million barrels of natural gas liquids. (1)
During the 1960s and 1970s the Soviet Union discovered and developed gas reserves near the town of Sheberghan in northern Afghanistan, see Figure 1. The gas production rate in the late 1970s was about 10 million m per day. The Soviets built gas conditioning plants at two of the fields for acid gas removal and dehydration (see Figure 2), and partially completed a compressor plant. The majority of the gas was exported to the north through what is now Uzbekistan. They also built a urea fertilizer plant near Mazar-e-Sharif, about 100 km to the east, with a capacity of 105,000 metric tons per year.
Figure 3 shows a map of the discovered fields. Three fields have been developed: Jarquduq, Yatimtaq and Khvajeh Gogerdag. There was a blow out at the Yatimtaq field in 1962 that burned for about three years. Estimates of the resulting gas losses range from 7 to 20 billion m. Cumulative production from these fields through 2002 was about 63 billion m. The remaining discovered fields have not been produced. The Soviets drilled exploration wells, but these were not suitable for production.
As the Soviets departed the country in 1989, they took most of their records, killed and shut in all of the producing wells and temporarily abandoned the fields. Very little original data remained in the country following the withdrawal. However, subsequent researchers have uncovered sufficient primary and secondary data to establish the gas reserves. The data was gathered with obsolete technology, and much of it is anecdotal in the form of worker's notebooks and other unofficial sources. There are estimated remaining reserves of about 34 billion m in the developed fields and 43 billion m in the undeveloped fields.
Today the gas production rate is about 500 thousand m per day. Figure 4 shows one of the operational Jarquduk wells. The gas plant facilities are used only for a small amount of liquid knock-out. The fields are operated by Afghan Gas, which employs about 1080 people.
The fertilizer plant is the main gas consumer. It employs about 2550 people, but operates at only 40% of capacity due to a lack of gas supply and a shortage of spare parts. It receives sweet gas through an underground transmission pipeline. There are widely varying reports about the amount of gas leakage from this pipeline. The official price of gas delivered to the plant is $25 per thousand m (about $0.70/MMBTU).
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