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By Trend

Kazakhstan has plans to significantly increase gas exports to China, Interfax Kazakhstan reported citing the Minister of Energy of Kazakhstan Kanat Bozumbayev.

"Yes, there are such plans. There is a preliminary agreement to significantly increase export. There are already such agreements, at least between two gas companies," Bozumbayev said, answering the question whether Kazakhstan plans to increase gas exports to China.

The minister refused to name the planned export volumes, only specifying that in 2018 exports can reach 5 billion cubic meters of gas.

The head of the national company KazMunaiGas, Sauat Mynbayev, had also earlier confirmed Kazakhstan's plans to export gas to China. According to him, 5 billion cubic meters of gas is planned to be delivered to China by October 2018.

In 2017, Kazakhstan started to export its gas to China. Expected export revenue is about $1 billion. It is planned to increase gas exports to China in 2019, to 10 billion cubic meters.

According to Kazakhstan's Ministry of Energy, at present Kazakhstan has 3.9 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves. In 2017, Kazakhstan produced 53 billion cubic meters of gas. Of these, about 22 billion were consumed by the producers themselves (injection of gas into the reservoir), the domestic market consumed 13.8 billion, and the remaining 17.2 billion cubic meters were exported.

KazMunaiGas is Kazakhstan's national operator for exploration, production, processing and transportation of hydrocarbons, which represents the interests of the state in the oil and gas industry. Some 90 percent of the company's shares belong to the state fund Samruk-Kazyna and 10 percent to the National Bank of Kazakhstan.

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