This blog is intended for those intending to travel to Uzbekistan and wishing to understand the fuel situation.
For everyone else, seriously, save yourself the bother and don’t read this.
It really is quite dull…
The road South from Samarkand towards Bukhara gave us the first opportunity to indulge in one of the trials of Uzbek self propelled travel;
The hunt for “dizel”…
Not that we necessarily needed it right now – we had a range of well over 2000km - but it’s always good to keep the tanks topped up at every opportunity:
Our setup:
120 litre long range main tank
48 litre wing mount flow through tank
2 x 20 litre jerries in frame in second row
Temporary 10 litre plastic container lashed to the roof - used in Uzbekistan only.
(People ask if internal jerries are not a problem with noise and smell.
Not in our experience?
A full jerry makes no sloshing noises, and they are new and have good seals, so we have never noticed any diesel odours. We elected not to have the unwelcome weight of roof mount jerries on an already heavily laden roof.)
We topped up from the roof container regularly, but never needed the 2 x jerries. To be honest we never dropped below 40 litres in the two main tanks - probably due to my constant efforts to refill.
So...for us (in a heavily laden 110) 140 litres capacity would have just been enough - but 200 plus gave us some comfort blanket.
Surprisingly - fuel stations are everywhere and most have no queues!
We have not been to any country with such a rich profusion of fuel depots.
However, the ones without queues are mostly closed, partially constructed, derelict or massively over engineered. Some are huge - with bays for 20 vehicles – but 19 of those bays are without a pump.
We weren’t sure if this was the LPG that we are used to seeing converted vehicles run on at home, or propane / butane (?) – but we soon learnt that driving to these and asking “Dizel? OK?” just confirmed you as a bit of a plum to be honest.
Some stations remain open and manned, with a hopeful looking car at the pump – despite not having any fuel present. The attendant would rather sit at a desk all day saying “Nyet Dizel” to stupid tourists, rather than put up a closed sign?
Tashkent and environs seemed to have no problems with fuel – and if the signs were to be believed it was remarkably cheap too – about 1600s a litre. But Samarkand was a bit more of a problem, some of the queues for petrol / benzin had to be seen to be believed, containing hundreds of cars in them.
However, it your willing to try your luck petrol heads, we met a couple of UK cars who joined the back of the benzin queue, only to be pushed to the front by the ever patient and helpful Uzbeks!
Luckily for us few cars in Uzbekistan use diesel, so it’s easier to get – but our first four attempts left us tempted to give up and press on.
We pulled up at a fifth queue-less station – expecting the usual - but:
“Dizel?”
“Yes”
“Fill up?”
“Yes”
“Uh – how much?”
“2500s/litre” (just under a dollar)
N 39.43.571
E 066.56.556 (although it’s probably run out by now)
Bloody hell! We even filled up the 10 litre ultra-mega-emergency container on the roof as well. Nick Paxton, our super-awesome Land Rover mechanic back home, advises us that quality diesel should look like a good, white wine.
Well this stuff looked like Happy Shopper coffee – with a spoon or two of Bovril thrown in for good measure.
So there you have the other issue with Uzbek diesel – it is of very questionable quality. Our 1996 300Tdi engine seemed happy enough though, and we kept throwing in bottles of Redex diesel cleaner bought from home, but if I had a newer common rail diesel I might be reluctant to subject a more refined motor to it?
Coming out of Bukhara the next day we again tried topping up at a few hopeful looking garages – but after half a dozen attempts gave up. One forecourt chappy offered to and get us a few jerries of black market stuff, if we were prepared to wait a half hour – but the whole diesel thing was getting tedious and we had a long drive ahead of us.
One potential source of diesel that we did not utilize but may come in handy to you is TIR Parks (lorry parks). Lorries run on the stuff and we were told they usually have a supply – or maybe a lorry driver with full tanks might siphon some out for you? Cost and quality of these sources is unknown to us though.
Asking at our digs in Khiva (Lali Opa guest house – cheap, very friendly and helpful, but sulphorous bathrooms straight from the gates of Hades)
N 41.22.808
E 060.21.453
provided the feedback that the black market was the only source available. Our helpful and friendly host drove me out to a shed in the suburbs where some swarthy looking gentlemen, provided 50 litres of coffee/bovril combo for 3300s/l.
The price gets higher the further you are from Tashkent. I used the opportunity to ask these guys “Why the problem with fuel?” – but they just gave a resigned shrug and said it’s been like this for ten years or more.
Heading South again for Termis on the Afghan border we found that where the Bukhara-Termis road bisects the road from Tashkent the deliveries seem to be getting through. We topped once again for a mere 2500s/l and took the following coordinates,
N 39.16.677
E 065.08.806
and for the next hour or so there seemed to be fuel aplenty.
A little further South towards Termis though and the queues were back.
Foot note: Crossing the border in Tajikistan these problems disappear, I ran the tanks down until we reached Dushanbe and topped up again with the relatively good quality Gazprom stuff – trying to dilute the Uzbek poopy plop in the tanks as much as possible…