Azernews.Az

Russia and Kazakhstan signed an intergovernmental agreement on oil supplies to China.

The deal on cooperation in Russian oil transport to China was sighed on Dec. 24 following the talks between the Presidents of two countries Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev in Mosco, Russian news agency Prime reported.

The parties also signed the Protocol amending the intergovernmental agreement on transit of oil from 2002 and the Protocol amending the intergovernmental agreement on trade and economic cooperation in the field of oil and oil products supply to Kazakhstan from 2010.

Earlier Russian oil company Rosneft's head Igor Sechin said it plans to pump 7 million tons of oil through Kazakhstan annually starting in January 2014.

Deliveries will be made on a swap scheme. In exchange for oil from Russia, Kazakhstan will give the same amount of oil to Russia, which will then supply it to China.

Currently, Russia supplies oil to Kazakhstan and Kazakhstan delivers the same volumes of oil to Russia. But this swap agreement expires on December 31, 2013.

Kazakhstan produces and exports a large amount of oil, meanwhile it imports some oil and oil products from Russia free of duty within the Customs Union. The need for oil supplies from Russia mainly results from the specifications of the Kazakh Pavlodar petrochemical plant, which focuses on refining of West Siberian oil from Russia.