Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Kazakhstan is interested in increasing its gas export and supplies in the southern direction, Kazakh political analyst Eduard Poletayev believes.

“Since its independence, Kazakhstan has been trying to get out of the transport isolation in which it found itself as a result of the peculiarities of economic development of the USSR,” the head of the “Mir Yevrazii” (World of Eurasia) Public Fund told Trend Agency on December 2. “All our communications with the outside world were through Russia. As a result, the countries located farther in the south were not fully available for Kazakh export.”

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who was on an official visit to Ashgabat on December 2 said his country intends to take part in Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project.

"We support Turkmenistan’s intention to construct the TAPI gas pipeline, and will participate in this project," Nazarbayev said.

Poletayev went on adding that the southern direction is one of the most important directions for Kazakhstan. This direction will give the country the opportunity to reach the nearest ocean, the Indian one.

He said the situation with the transport infrastructure is improving now. For example, Kazakhstan exports a lot of products, in particular oil products, grain and flour to Afghanistan.

"Gas projects should also be diversified as well," the expert said.

However, it's unclear for now how Kazakhstan will participate in this project because the country has no free gas. Natural gas produced in the west of the country is already exported by other existing pipelines.

"It's hard for me to imagine how technically it is feasible to turnthe existing gas streams from north to south given that Turkmenistan has enough gas," he said.

Kazakhstan has large deposits of hydrocarbons in the Caspian Sea. But rich Caspian oil and gas area requires significant technical improvements, modernization and innovations.

Poletayev said it is possible that Kazakhstan can participate in TAPI project by its specific economic and political authority to support the Turkmen president and his plans for the economic development of the country.

“At the same time, it is possible that the initiative of the Kazakh president lacks a real plan of action for now and it has not yet been decided how it should be implemented,” the expert said.

“It will be necessary to see how this idea is actually implemented. For example, the possibility of building Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan-Russia Caspian gas pipeline has been talked about for a long time, but the plans still remain on paper.”

In addition, today one needs to take into account that the price of oil falls, and if such trends continue, many projects may not be very profitable, Poletayev concluded.

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.