Russian oil and gas company Lukoil plans to hike natural gas production in Uzbekistan six-fold by 2017, a top company official said this week in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.

The energy major will boost its investment in the country by 400 percent to $5 billion in order to achieve a target output of 18 billion cubic meters of gas by that date, said Andrei Kuzyayev, president of Lukoil Overseas.

The Russian firm will ratchet up gas production by 30 percent year-on-year, Kuzyayev told the Oil and Gas Uzbekistan 2011 held in Tashkent, “Oil and Gas Uzbekistan-2011”, the Uzbekistan Daily reported on Thursday.

Lukoil has invested more the $1.5 billion in Uzbekistan to date in three projects that produce a total of 3 billion cubic meters of gas per year for the company.

Uzbekistan has the world’s tenth largest reserves of natural gas.