SEOUL, October 28 (AJP) - Kazakhstan and China held talks in Astana on Tuesday on increasing oil supplies and expanding pipeline capacity, as the Kazakh government pressed to speed up joint energy projects with China National Petroleum Corporation, China's largest oil and gas producer.
First Deputy Prime Minister Nurlybek Nalibayev chaired the meeting, the fifth held by the two countries' working group on oil and gas cooperation, the Kazakh government's press service said. Energy Minister Erlan Akkenzhenov attended, along with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) President Zhou Xinhuai and heads and representatives of both countries' national oil and gas companies.
Nalibayev pointed to the high level of the comprehensive strategic partnership between Kazakhstan and China and stressed the importance of completing joint energy projects on schedule.
The agenda covered nearly every link in the energy chain. Officials discussed raising oil supplies, expanding the capacity of oil pipelines, stepping up geological exploration and developing cooperation in natural gas. They also took up the expansion of the Shymkent Oil Refinery, new petrochemical projects and closer cooperation in new energy.
The two sides also looked at ways to continue cooperation in subsoil use, the legal term for rights to explore and extract oil, gas and minerals. They discussed extending existing contracts and resolving problems that have come up while carrying out joint projects.
After the meeting, Nalibayev called for faster progress on joint projects and for solutions to pressing issues that would benefit both sides.
The Shymkent refinery, in southern Kazakhstan, sits at the center of several of those plans. Kazakhstan intends to double its processing capacity from 6 million to 12 million tons of oil a year, a goal President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced at the Central Asia-China summit in Xi'an in 2023.
A larger refinery needs more crude, and much of it would travel through the Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline system, which links oil fields near the Caspian Sea with Alashankou in China's Xinjiang region. Kazakhstan has been considering an expansion of that system to secure additional supplies for the Shymkent refinery.
The plan calls for five new pumping stations and an additional pipeline section of about 180 kilometers.
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