"We see a reduction of around 400 million-500 million cubic meters," Lukoil’s president, Vagit Alekperov, said in an interview with Bloomberg television.

Lukoil was earlier planning to produce 2.7 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas this year in Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan, Lukoil and Gazprom have already signed an agreement to supply 1.8 bcm in gas this year. Alekperov said that Gazprom was acting fairly when it asked independent gas producers to reduce their output in proportion to its own decrease.

It was earlier reported that Lukoil plans to produce over 12 bcm of gas a year in Uzbekistan. This rate could be achieved by 2011, the company said. In the autumn of 2007, Lukoil started producing gas in the country in the framework of the Kandym-Khauzak-Shady PSA. All gas exported from Uzbekistan goes through Gazprom’s trunk pipeline system.