Caucasian passage widening

The president of Kazakhstan suggested creating a new oil pipeline in the network of the TRACECA program.

Early in March, Romanian President Traian Băsescu paid a state visit to Astana. After the official reception at the presidential residence, the heads of the two states conducted a joint press conference. Replying to questions by Romanian journalists concerning the prospects of usage of the pipeline “Constanţa-Trieste,” Nursultan Nazarbayev noted that after the bringing of the world's largest field “Kashgan” into service, Kazakhstan will get up to 50 million tons of additional oil per annum.  In connection with this, the Kazakh president suggested laying a new pipeline between the Caspian and the Black Sea in the network of the TRACECA Program.

In Nazarbayev’s opinion, “it would be a good thing to open a new oil transportation route through the Caucasian passage, that is through the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Black Sea, and further by oil ships to Romania”.

 

The president also noted that a 100% share of stocks of the Romanian company Rompetrol belongs to the national company “KazMunaiGas”. Altogether, Kazakhstan supplies Romania with 4 million tons of oil, which makes up 30% of its national requirement. The «KazMunaiGas» subsidiary, «KazTransOil», intends to divert supplies of oil through Ukraine and Poland. A company statement emphasized that oil supplies along the new lines “are attractive enough for Kazakhstan oil producers”.

Moreover, Nazarbayev and Băsescu discussed issues of the intensification of Kazakh-Romanian trade and economic and also humanitarian and cultural cooperation. The Romanian president said that the achievements of Kazakhstan in political and socio-economic field were valued in Bucharest, and Kazakhstan is considered the main partner in Central Asia.

 
“We have great hopes that the chairmanship of Kazakhstan in the OSCE, will be a success. We support the Kazakh initiative of holding an OSCE summit in Astana, as well as we support the Kazakh chairmanship in the OSCE,” Băsescu said.

Romania has already become the chief partner of Kazakhstan in Central and East Europe. According to 2009 totals, the bulk of mutual trade made up more than 878 million dollars. In Kazakhstan 35 joint enterprises operate participated in by the Romanian side, in fields of geological exploration, oil and gas production, supplies of equipment for fuel-energy complex, construction and trade. There are 11 Romanian-Kazakh enterprises registered in Romania, working in construction, electro-technology, gold-mining industry, furniture, clothes, shoes and the medicaments trade.

The intergovernmental agreements were signed as a conclusion to the negotiations, aimed at the expansion of trade and economic and humanitarian and cultural contacts, including agreements on economic cooperation, stimulation and mutual defense of investments, on cooperation between the departments of justice of the two countries, on cooperation in tourism business as well as a memorandum on mutual understanding between the Kazakh Agency for statistics and the Romanian National institute for statistics on cooperation in statistics.

Gulnara Dzandagulova, Astana. Exclusively for VC