ASTANA (TCA) — Kazakhstan exported 12.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas last year, Galym Nurgaziyev, director of the Gas Industry Department at Kazakhstan’s Energy Ministry, said on March 18, the official website of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan reported.
“In 2015 gas export amounted to 12.7 billion cubic meters, which is 15 percent more than the previous year and more than 3.5-fold higher than in 2000,” Nurgaziyev told a media briefing in Astana.
In 2015 Kazakhstan produced 45.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas, a 5-percent increase compared to the previous year.
Since its independence Kazakhstan has increased gas production by more than 5.5-fold, Nurgaziyev added.
In his words, Kazakhstan’s domestic gas consumption last year was 12.1 billion cubic meters.
Nurgaziyev reminded that last year saw the commissioning of the 3rd line of the Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline.
At the media briefing Nurgaziyev also said that the construction of two trunk pipelines for gasification of Kazakhstan’s capital city Astana had been suspended for “an indefinite period of time,” Novosti-Kazakhstan news agency reported.
He also said that it is also possible to gasify Astana with coalbed methane from the Karaganda coal field, but this project is still under consideration.
“I would like to say that today Astana is gasified, but with liquefied petroleum gas. The city receives around five thousand tons [of such gas] per month,” the official said.
