For Immediate Release
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Contact: Roman Vassilenko, t. 202 232 5488, ext. 104
Kazakhstan Has Critical Role in Global Energy Security, US Energy Secretary Says
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, visiting Astana today for talks with top Kazakh officials on strengthening energy ties between the two countries, said Kazakhstan has a critical role to play in global energy security.
Speaking to reporters in Astana following his meeting with President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Bodman said “Kazakhstan has a critical role to play in advancing global energy security” and the country should “take a leading role in the region to promote expanded energy infrastructure development and additional energy transit routes.” Bodman added that he and President Nazarbayev had discussed “the desire of the United States to see negotiations concluded between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan to transport Kazakh oil through the BTC pipeline.”
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which links the Azeri capital of Baku with the Turkish Mediterranean seaport of Ceyhan via the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, was opened in May 2005. When BTC comes online, it will be shipping oil westwards from rich Caspian Sea fields, estimated to hold the world’s third largest reserves. Earlier this year, Kazakh officials announced negotiations on Kazakhstan’s accession to the BTC should be completed this summer.
Previously, all export routes for Kazakh oil were directed through Russia.
In 2001, a pipeline of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, linking Tengiz, the world’s sixth largest oil field, in western Kazakhstan with Novorossiysk, the Russia Black Sea port, became the first privately owned pipeline in the region specifically designed for exporting Kazakh oil. Last December, Kazakhstan and China completed another pipeline, linking oil fields in western Kazakhstan with oil processing facilities in energy hungry western China. Taken together, these pipelines, plus the BTC route, should give Kazakhstan and foreign oil producers operating the country the choice of multiple export pipelines needed to ensure the unimpeded energy flows to the world market.
Kazakhstan’s total oil production, currently at 1.3 million barrels per day, is set to almost triple to 3 million barrels per day by 2015 with the bulk being exported. Kazakh officials estimate the country’s potential recoverable reserves at 100 billion barrels of oil and 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
With US$15 billion invested in Kazakhstan today, the U.S. is the largest foreign investor in the country. While in Astana, Bodman said U.S. investment in Kazakhstan is expected to double during the next five years.
Secretary Bodman also met Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Baktykozha Izmukhambetov telling him the United States is willing to cooperate with Kazakhstan in the areas of nuclear power, petrochemistry, and renewal energy resources, including solar and wind power. Kazakhstan has an estimated 20 percent of the world’s uranium reserves.
The U.S. Energy Secretary also praised Kazakhstan’s contribution to nuclear nonproliferation.
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News Bulletin of the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the USA and Canada
(Compiled from own sources and agency reports)
Contact person: Roman Vassilenko
1401 16th Street NW, Washington DC 20036
Tel.: 202 232 5488, ext. 104, Fax: 202 232 5845
