Gazprom and the government of Kazakhstan signed a roadmap for cooperation in the gas industry.
“A working meeting was held Alexey Miller and First Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Roman Sklyar. The parties discussed the course and prospects of interaction. At the meeting Alexey Miller and Roman Sklyar signed a roadmap for cooperation in the gas industry”, Gazprom reports.
A week ago, Roman Sklyar visited Moscow and met with the Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. “Roman Sklyar confirmed the willingness of the Kazakh side to further develop cooperation with the Russian Federation in all areas of energy. I especially noted the interest of Kazakhstan in cooperation with the Russian Federation in the modernization of the gas transportation system of Kazakhstan, in the gasification of the northern and eastern regions of the country, in increasing the volume of transportation of Russian energy carriers to third countries,” the press service of the Russian government reported.
Due to sanctions and counter-sanctions, Gazprom is reducing supplies to the EU, and the Russian president has proposed a tripartite alliance with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to transport Russian gas to Asia. This idea sparked insinuations about the political underpinnings of the union. However, Moscow insisted that it was about technical cooperation.
For example, Kazakhstan itself is interested in cooperation with Russia for gasification of the north and east of the country.
“We are still negotiating right now. As a working option, this is through Barnaul, most likely, then to the north of our territory and further branching between Pavlodar, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Semey and so on. Alternatively, it could also be used for transit, but these negotiations have not yet been completed,” – said the head of the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan Bolat Akchulakov. According to the minister, the Kazakh side estimates the capacity of the gas pipeline at 10 billion cubic meters.
“If interest is expressed for some additional volumes of supply to the south, a more powerful pipe could be considered, say more than 20-30 billion cubic meters. m of gas. But these are questions of negotiations,” the Minister of Energy of Kazakhstan added.
Kazakhstan is a gas producing country. The Ministry of Energy of the country stated that they planned to produce 54.5 billion cubic meters in 2022. 5 billion cubic meters were planned to be exported to China. But supplies began to be reduced in the summer due to a shortage in Kazakhstan itself. The president Kasym-Jomart Tokaev urged companies to redirect 2 billion cubic meters of export supplies to the domestic market.
