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Difficulties in finding fuel in Uzbekistan
Hi guys, been in Uzbek for 3 days now, via Beyneu border in Kazakhstan. Might not be everywhere in Uzbek, but so far all fuel stations from border to Khiva are closed. Fuel ( petrol and diesel) can be found only on the black market.
We have been spending lots of time looking for it. Make sure you bring lots of fuel. It is possible to buy some but, as i said, black market and hard to find! Will tell if it gets better as we move to Bukhara and Samarkand! For now we need a rest, been tough few days of hard riding and intense heat! |
Hey maria
Thanks for the info.. Been following your trip since a few weeks now. I'm heading there (end destination Japan) next month or so. I wonder if the fuel situation is abnormal or not as, from what I heard, it's always hard to find fuel there.. Anyways, enjoy the trip! A. |
Hi, just been explained and for what i understand, it is a deliberate government decision.
It seems they are moving toward biofuel and LPG only. So might be general. We may be able to find fuel in khiva or Urgench, but after that been told we may not find anything till Bukhara! So we are going to get containers to carry extra fuel. We already have an 8 l fuel bladder but not enough. Cheers, |
thank you marıa for the report !
I should be ın uzbekıstan 2 weeks now !! I'm glad I got a 48 L tank ;) |
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Good luck! |
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No pumps. It comes from big water bottles (5 or 10 litres) ! Thx for suggestion, might be good idea Chris!
The hotel manager is taking us tomorrow somewhere to buy fuel! So we can stock pile and make it to our next destination! We'll see! See below the husband getting black market fuel! Happy we found fuel! Yay! |
Well, at trip like yours (and hopefully mine in two weeks) these things, amongst many others obv, are what made it interesting.. It shouldn't all be 'a stroll in the park' :-)
Enjoy and thanks again for the information! A. |
This is normal in Uzbekistan. Working petrol pumps, ATMs, internet connection is not always available.
The fuel situation gets better as you get closer to Tashkent, i.e. it can be bought at the pumps, though rarely at the advertised price. |
Sorry but as we just did the same route as you and are in Buchara now and were in Khiva 2 days ago coming from Bejneu 5 days ago, I CAN ABSOLUTELY NOT CONFIRM THIS!!
90% here uses LPG, so all the fuel stations cannot survive on the few customers passing by driving on Benzin or Diesel. So most station are closed, the ones surviving mostly have only 1 kind of fuel, Diesel or Bezin. In agriculture cities, mostly 10 to 15 km from the highway you find diesel allways, in every densed populated city you find benzin. If you want to find it in between, just ask any truckdriver or restaurant along the road and it will be brought to you within a few minutes. Price between 80 and 100 dollarcents/ltr GRTZ, JP |
All i am saying is that so far we have not found a single fuel station opened, but then i speak very little russian. THe only benzin we found was from black market. Now in Khiva, the hotel owner took us to a house where we bought enough fuel to get to Bukhara. Maybe you where able to find Benzin, but for us it has been a constant worry.... Is there any fuel station between khiva and bukhara? Not sure we can make it. We spent two hours trying most fuel pumps in Nukus and did not find one working. So maybe you were lucky or we have been very unlucky....
Incidentally, even the hotel owner has to buy his fuel from the black market not from a fuel pump. He took us to his provide in a house! A group of Moldavian riders, that we met at the border, who speak very good russian, had the same issue.... |
What we're saying is that there is fuel, you just have to ask. You don't need to speak Russian to point at a car / bike / jerrycan and say 'benzin' :D I must admit however it is very frustrating to find petrol station after petrol station closed. When I used to stay in Tashkent, I once very nearly ran out of diesel looking for fuel in the sprawling outskirts of the city. Turns out the only fuel station in the area with diesel was the one at the end of the road I was staying on!
Once, in the desert city of Uchquduq, I needed diesel. I walked around until I smelt a diesel car - a few drivers with old Ford Transit minubuses. One driver whom I asked (admittedly in Russian) jumped in his Transit and told me to follow, back to his garage. Underneath a trap door was a cache of diesel - which he pumped up into jerries which were then poured into my truck. After all this work he actually charged me less (S1500) than the advertised prices at the moribund petrol pumps (S1600), and even filled my water container at his house... Uzbekistan has a massive informal economy. Cash + asking the right people will get you what you need :thumbup1: Between Khiva and Bukhara there will be fuel, but only close to Urgench / Bukhara. Try to top up in Urgench and then refill at the first place close to Bukhara. If you don't have the fuel range to cover distances between cities in the desert, maybe you should have brought jerrycans! |
what a very useful thread I would not have known about should it not been posted.
Will put that in my "everything you need to know about Uzbekistan list" :thumbup1: Hope you found some toothpaste Maria........... |
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Last summer I had a heck of a time finding any station with benzine. If it did have benzine, there would be a line of 30 or so cars waiting to fill their jugs.. so they could sell it to a sucker like me on the black market :rofl:
If you are buying from a gas station, use Uzbek money. If you are buying from black market, you can sometimes get a better deal by using $1 for 1 liter. Some places they wanted to charge me as much as 5000 som per liter. When I showed them american currency, they gladly accepted $1/liter. Also, the fuel is shit. If you are buying form the black market, it is probably 80 octane. If they say it is 91, they are lying to you. Good luck. Carry extra. Fill up whenever you see it. Russian lesson for finding fuel: "gday eta benzine" = "where is benzine?" "skoyka kilomet" = "how many kilometers?" "Skoyka stoyet" = "how much money?" |
We saw a benzin pump that looked opened, in Urgench, in a ring road. When u come from Khiva, big round about, turn right. This is the only big round about so easy to spot. Also, we passe two houses with the 5 litre water bottles that must be benzin again by the colour of it.
Then we found a fuel pump where we bought fuel, in the middle of the desert, about 80 miles ( sorry not sure how far!) from Bukhara. We have seen fuel pump also round Bukhara so will test one tomorrow. So problem seems to be round the north west provinces, coming from Beineu. About 100 miles after the border, there is a chaihana that had diesel ( sold to some american embassy staff) but refused to sell us benzin saying it was too bad quality. You can sleep there as well by the way! Clean and showers! Also they have food and water. About 40 or 50 miles before Qonghirat, there is a huge Chaihana, from the road a sign say you can get food, showers and fuel.( after some big industrial and construction site, easy to spot). When we turned up they told us we could get fuel from Qonghirat. We were in reserve so no way to make it. They eventually agreed to sell us fuel but we pay a lot for it. We did not stop at qonghirat but went to Nukus, thinking a big town we would find benzin! We turned around for two hours, asking everyone, every methane or whatever sort of provider we could find. We came across a very long queue of cars. They were even sleeping in their car. We thought it was for benzin but it was for diesel. They came to see us, curious and eventually someone produce two bottles of 5 litres water filled with benzin. Got it for a more reasonable price..... Then again in a village, by asking we got some bit of more fuel... All in all not easy but yes you can but fuel... You just need to keep asking and make sure you can cove 250 or even better 300 miles... Long distances in the desert! Hope this help! Sorry for typos, using tablet not easy to type long notes! Cheers, |
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