The Ministry of Mines and Petroleum has awarded the contract for drilling two gas wells in the Yatim Taq area of Jawzjan province to a Turkish company.

Shahabuddin Delawar, the acting Minister of Mines and Petroleum, said that this company will drill two wells at a cost of $7.5 million dollars over the next year.

He added, "100,000 cubic meters of gas will be extracted daily from this mine, and each 1,000 cubic meters of gas will be sold for 200 dollars."

Delawar also mentioned the ministry's efforts to contract other gas-rich areas of the country to major companies in the near future, stating that with the exploration and extraction of these gas mines, Afghanistan will be among the important oil countries.

He further said: "We will sign 4,000 kilometers of the area, God willing, with an investment of one billion dollars. We hope that Afghanistan will achieve self-sufficiency with this."

The head of the company said that 20 engineers from Turkey would be brought to Afghanistan for the drilling of the gas well in the Yatim Taq area of Jawzjan, and employment opportunities will be created for dozens of other people in the area.

Qadir Karakoc, the head of the company that won the contract, said: "We will bring 20 engineers from Turkey to Afghanistan to drill these wells, and we will also hire 40 to 50 people from within Afghanistan in the work process."

Homayoun Afghan, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, said: "We have active wells and extraction is ongoing, with approximately 600,000 cubic meters of gas being obtained from various wells in Sheberghan. With the drilling of two new wells, daily extraction will reach one million cubic meters of gas."

Following the signing of the contract for the two gas wells in Jawzjan, the bidding process for several small projects in the Qashqari block of the Amu Darya oil region was also held among domestic companies.