ALMATY, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Kazakh state firm QazaqGaz and China’s Petrochina International signed a new gas supply contract on Tuesday, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s office said.
It provided no details of the deal while Kazakh news website lsm.kz citing QazaqGaz said it covered supplies between 2023 and 2026.
A Chinese industry official with knowledge of the deal, who declined to be identified due to company policy, said the contract is an extension of an existing one.
Kazakhstan has been exporting gas to China for years, although it has reduced the volume supplied, at first due to lower demand and then because of increased domestic consumption.
However, this month Russia, largely cut off from European markets, started exporting gas to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which could allow Astana to free up more of its own gas for export.
According to Reuters’ calculations based on official customs data, China imported an average of 4.5 million metric tons, or about 6.2 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas a year from Kazakhstan between 2018 and 2022.
At 6.2 bcm, that accounted for roughly 1.7% of China’s gas consumption in 2022.
Source : Reuters