TASHKENT, January 23 (RIA Novosti) - Uzbekistan is ready to sell Russia up to 31 billion cubic meters of natural gas this year, the country's president said on Friday.

"We've offered Gazprom 16 billion cu m of gas for export this year, but we are ready to provide more," Islam Karimov said. "Considering LUKoil has been granted permission to increase gas production in this country, we can supply another 15 billion cu m of gas."

He stressed that Uzbekistan "sells gas to Russia, and to Russia only, while it is entirely up to Russia what to do with it next."

He added that Uzbekistan was ready for new gas pipelines to be built across its territory to increase gas supply and transit.

Gazprom's CEO said Russia and Uzbekistan were studying the possibility of building gas transit lines running parallel to the existing Central Asia-Center pipelines.

Alexei Miller said that Uzbekistan "is very important as a transit country, in particular in ensuring gas supplies from Turkmenistan."