Russia and Kazakhstan have agreed on the route of the gas pipeline to China

ASTANA, May 16 (Reuters) –

Russia and Kazakhstan have agreed on the route of the gas pipeline to China, Kazakhstan’s energy minister Almasadam Satkaliyev announced on Tuesday.

In February, Kazakhstan’s state-owned company QazaqGaz and Russia’s Gazprom started talks on developing a preliminary feasibility study to explore the possibility of building an international Russia-Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline.

“The issue of building a gas pipeline from Russia through the northern territories of Kazakhstan to the PRC is being discussed, the route has been predetermined, the conditions for building this gas pipeline are being discussed,” Satkaliyev said.

The minister did not say exactly where the gas pipeline would run and under what conditions it would be built. Satkaliev also did not specify the conditions for the development of a preliminary feasibility study, saying that negotiations are ongoing.

It is assumed that Kazakhstan will be able to gasify the eastern regions of the country at the expense of Russian gas.

In November last year, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan started talks on the creation of a gas union for domestic supplies and supplies to third country markets, including China.

According to Satkaliyev, “rather constructive negotiations are currently underway … the possibility of transiting Russian gas to Uzbekistan is being discussed.”

Gazprom’s exports to countries outside the CIS, including China and Turkey, fell by almost 46% to 100.9 billion cubic meters in 2022, mainly due to reduced supplies to the EU.

After the decline in exports, Gazprom’s production in 2022 fell by 20% to 412.6 billion cubic meters. Gazprom stopped disclosing gas production and export statistics. (Tamara Vaal, text by Maria Gordeeva)