BISHKEK (AFP) – Bishkek residents have no gas to heat their homes amid arctic temperatures, authorities said December 16. Some districts also lack electric power at a time when the mercury has dipped to minus 20° C, they said.

Gas supplies have been cut off from neighbouring Kazakhstan, which relies on deliveries from Uzbekistan, itself unable to extract the fuel because of the freezing weather. “KazTransGas had repeatedly warned Kyrgyzstan about limited gas resources and possible reduction of supplies. Due to abnormally low temperatures, limited supply of Uzbek gas and increased gas consumption in southern Kazakhstan, KazTransGas has limited gas delivery to KyrgyzGas,” KazTransGas said. KazTransGas is a unit of KazMunaiGas. According to its data, on December 13 KazTransGas has restricted supply of gas to the north of the Kyrgyz Republic up to 30 m³/h while gas consumption in Bishkek amounts to 25,200 m³/h. Gas supply to Bishkek Heat and Power Plant has been cut off since Thursday.

Kyrgyzstan has a debt of $26.6 mln to KazTransGas.

Lacking gas, Bishkek residents have begun using more electricity, which has led to outages in parts of the city, authorities said. As reported by the Ministry of Energy and Industry on December 17, 777 MW of electricity is consumed while the limit is fixed at 590 MW limit. The regions of Talas, Issyk-Kul, Naryn and Jalal-Abad also exceeded power consumption limits. Power consumption in northern Kyrgyzstan reached 1,822 MW versus the limit of 1,700 MW. Power consumption in southern Kyrgyzstan stays below the limit (980 MW) at 956 MW. The daily power consumption across the country made 58 mln kWh versus the limit of 55,4 mln kWh

Weather forecasters warn that temperatures could drop to -24° C in the region.