The field in the Uzbek area of the Aral Sea produced 500,000 cubic meters of gas a day from the first test drilling, South Korea’s Ministry of Knowledge Economy said in an e-mailed statement today.

Minister Choi Kyung Hwan, who oversees the nation’s energy policy, is visiting the Central Asian nation this week.

The field is jointly operated by the South Korean companies and CNPC, OAO Lukoil, Russia’s largest oil producer, Petroliam Nasional Bhd, the Malaysian state oil company known as Petronas, and state-run Uzbekneftegaz. The companies made production- sharing agreements with the Uzbek government in 2006.

The group will drill a second well in August, the ministry said. Uzbekistan estimates the field to hold reserves of 63 million metric tons of gas, according to the ministry. South Korea, the world’s second-largest liquefied natural gas importer, purchased 25.8 million tons of gas last year.

South Korea and Uzbekistan began raising funds for the US$4 billion gas project in the Central Asian nation and aim to start the project next year, according to a separate statement.

President Lee Myung Bak and his Uzbek counterpart Islam Karimov signed in February a binding agreement to jointly develop the gas field in northwestern Uzbekistan and build a chemical plant in the area.

Surgil holds the equivalent of about 96 million tons of liquefied natural gas, enough to supply the North Asian nation for more than three years, South Korea’s Ministry of Knowledge Economy said on Feb 25, 2008.

The venture plans to produce 2.8 billion cubic meters of gas annually. It will also make 360,000 tons a year of high-density polyethylene and 80,000 tons of polypropylene starting 2012, the government in Seoul said then.