The Gazprom headquarters hosted today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company's Management Committee and Zautbek Turisbekov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Russia.

The parties looked at the issues of the Russian-Kazakh cooperation deepening in hydrocarbons exploration, production, transmission, processing and distribution with due consideration for the fact that the Common Economic Space had been established in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan since January 1.

The parties highlighted a 10 per cent increase in the amount of gas marketed by Gazprom Group to Kazakhstan in 2011 as compared to 2010. There are favorable conditions for a further increase in supplies.

At the end of the meeting a unanimous opinion was expressed that the Common Economic Space opened up new opportunities for more advanced energy partnership among its participants and met the strategic interests of the parties.

Background

In June 2002 Gazprom and KazMunaiGaz National Company founded a 50/50 Kazakhstan-based joint venture – KazRosGaz – dealing with natural gas procurement, marketing and processing at Russian plants as well as with other activities. On September 7, 2010 Russia and Kazakhstan entered into the Intergovernmental Agreement on joint geological survey and exploration of the cross-border Imashevskoye gas and condensate field. In April 2011 Gazprom and KazMunaiGaz signed the Agreement identifying KazRosGaz as the Imashevskoye field operator. The Imashevskoye field is located 60 kilometers northeast of Astrakhan in Russia and 250 kilometers southwest of Atyrau in Kazakhstan's Kurmangazy District. The field contains over 100 billion cubic meters of explored gas reserves. The Russian sector of the Imashevskoye field is currently a part of the undistributed stock of subsurface resources. In accordance with the Joint Statement by Russian and Kazakh Presidents of December 10, 2010, TsentrCaspneftegaz (a joint venture between Gazprom and Lukoil) is tasked with preparing a Tsentralnoye Field Production Sharing Agreement for signing until the end of 2012.