Astana, October 16 - Neftegaz.RU. According to Platts, Kazakhstan's national gas shipping company KazTransGaz and PetroChina International on October 15th inked a 5-year contract to double Kazakh natural gas exports to China to 10 billion m3 /year from 2019.
Kazakhstan started exports of its gas to China in October 2017 under a 1-year deal between KazTransGaz and PetroChina for 5 Bcm/year. Previously KazTransGaz sold its gas to Gazprom for further re-sale.
Gas to China flows via the Beineu-Bozoi-Shymkent pipeline, running west to southeast Kazakhstan, then linking into the Kazakhstan-China pipeline, part of the larger 7,500-km (4,650-mile) Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-China trunk pipeline.
KazTransGaz expects to expand its internal pipeline infrastructure to facilitate increased supplies to China. «In the near future, 3 new high-tech compressing stations will be launched, to increase the capacity of the Beineu-Bozoi-Shymkent pipeline to 15 Bcm/year from 10 Bcm/year,» KazTransGaz said in a statement.
«Thus, we'll fully secure domestic demand [for gas] and simultaneously will be able to increase exports to international markets,» it said. KazTransGaz expects that the doubling of gas exports to China to 10 Bcm/year will bring in more than $2 billion/year in revenue.
