Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Kazakhstan will increase the production of its energy resources in the coming years, Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov said at the 25th session of the Energy Charter Conference in Astana on November 27.

“We expect to join the top 10 main producers of energy resources across the globe, including the production of natural gas,” he said. “We are also going to develop projects for the processing of shale gas.”

The prime minister also noted the Energy Charter plays an important role in the management of the energy market, including the establishment of ties between the players of this market.

“Consequently, the Energy Charter Treaty plays an important role in ensuring equal conditions for all participants of the production energy chain,” Massimov added.

“It is quite obvious that energy security is one of the major challenges of our time. Economic growth contributes to the fact that the demand for energy resources grows. We believe that the search for the new renewable sources of energy will gain increasing importance,” he noted.

The prime minister urged the conference participants to give a response to these challenges together, noting that Kazakhstan is taking measures to ensure the active participation of all players in all these processes.

“We believe that the development of efficient energy markets is in our common interest including producers, transporters and consumers of energy.”

He also said that Kazakhstan aspires to diversify the routes of energy supplies.

“Currently, we are working hard to develop and expand pipelines and gas pipelines to China,” the prime minister said.

Kazakhstan, one of the five Central Asian countries, is rich with hydrocarbon reserves. Crude oil production in the country amounted to 53,585 million metric tons for 8 months of this year, and this is 0.7 percent less compared to the same period of 2013. The production of crude oil amounted to 45,012 million metric tons, condensate to 8,573 million metric tons and natural gas to 28.3 billion cubic meters in the reported period.

Kazakhstan is currently looking for ways to use renewable energy sources. The country has adopted an action plan for the development of renewable energy sources for a period from 2013 to 2020.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has also set a task to reduce the consumption of energy by 10 percent every year until 2015. Last year, Kazakhstan adopted the Energy Efficiency-2020 program. As part of the Energy Efficiency-2020 program, Kazakhstan plans to implement 78 different activities worth more than 1.1 trillion tenge.

Experts believe that Kazakhstan has to turn to alternative energy sources by 2030, as the traditional sources are being exhausted and their prices are rising. They charge about 20-30 percent of domestically consumed energy can be saved by using alternative energy resources.