PRESIDENT NAZARBAYEV SPEAKS ON ENERGY ISSUES AT THE 6TH KAZAKH-RUSSIAN FORUM ON INTER-REGIONAL COOPERATION

Astana, September 15: President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev summarized main issues regarding energy cooperation between Kazakhstan and Russia at the 6th Kazakh-Russian Forum on Inter-regional Cooperation. The President announced that the Caspian Pipeline Consortium pipeline extension project could be approved by the end of this year (the CPC pipeline is an oil pipeline from Tengiz field to the Novorossiysk-2 Marine Terminal on Russia’s Black Sea coast. It is also a major export route for oil from the Kashagan  and Karachaganak fields).

Another important joint project of hydrocarbons transportation is the construction of the Caspian gas pipeline. This project will ensure transportation of an additional 40 million cubic tons of Kazakh and Turkmen gas across Russia. The President called for an acceleration of work on this project and for further development of trans-border oil fields such as Imashevskoe, Khavynskoe and Centralnaya.

As for the power industry - given that Russia and Kazakhstan have inherited a common power grid and generation system - President Nazarbayev said that joint ventures between the two countries should be strengthened in order to expand and modernize infrastructures such as the Ekibastuz-2 hydroelectric power station. He also identified “obsolescence of the sector’s fixed assets, high power consumption, low tariffs, need for greater transparency and attractiveness for investors” as the main problems of the sector.  One of the most acute issues is energy saving: “Our governments need to cooperate – both through exchange of experience and working out of joint incentives.”

The President also spoke of the new Common Customs Union that should be formed soon with Russia and Belarus: “We have adopted 30 international agreements; draft unified customs tariffs are to be approved shortly.” He called the EurAsEC Anti-crisis Fund a “major tool for overcoming the global economic crisis” through “extending sovereign loans and stabilization loans and through financing of interstate investment projects.”

The President said the participation of neighboring countries in the Forum gave “a new impetus to activating dialogue and interaction among regions of Kazakhstan and Russia” and ended his speech by extending an invitation to the next Forum – which will take place in Kazakhstan in 2010.