Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline will operate at full stream by 2014

Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline will start working at its full capacity by 2014, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Director General of KazTransOil Kairkeldy Kabyldin. “Commercial talks are currently underway between Chinese and Kazakhstan representatives. We launched the oil pipeline with a capacity of 10 million ton in 2005 and last year we increased it to 14 million. The nominal capacity is 20 million tons. According to the agreement with China, we are planning to bring Atasu-Alashankou section to 20 million tons to ensure sufficient supplies to China,” Kabyldin said. According to him, construction of two pumping stations has already started at Atasu-Alashankou section this year. “We are in talks on the section from Atyrau to Alashankou to define the funding base and the commercial parameters and rates. We currently need around 100 billion tenge ($667 million) to bring Atyrau-Alashankou section to 20 million tons,” head of KazTransOil said. He did not exclude the possibility of using the funds received from implementation of the People’s IPO campaign. “The money from IPO will be first of all invested in reconstruction and modernization of our assets that are 100 percent controlled by KazTransOil to ensure their efficiency. If we decide that Chinese project also gives a certain guaranteed investment payback, of course, we will see into the possibility of using the IPO money,” Kabyldin said. By Aidana Ussupova