Kazakh energy giant invites SOCAR to consider projects in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan's national oil and gas company KazMunaiGas JSC has offered the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) to consider projects related to geological exploration in Kazakhstan.

The remarks were made by Chairman of the KazMunayGas Board Magzum Mirzagaliyev in an exclusive interview with Trend during his visit to Baku.

"KazMunayGas wants the relationship with SOCAR to go beyond transportation issues and include the full range or palette of co-operation as much as possible. Thus, we have agreed that we are now studying the issues of possible development of projects in the field of oil and production. In addition, we offered SOCAR to look at projects related to geological exploration in Kazakhstan," he said.

According to him, the president of SOCAR was informed that the so-called Improved Model Contract (IMC) for subsoil use was legislatively adopted in 2023 by order of Kazakh President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev.

"Thanks to IMC, the best conditions will be created for investors in geological exploration and production in complex deposits. This means that we will continue to discuss and study the potential of joint projects," he said.

In 2022, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev instructed to increase the volume of oil transported through the Middle Corridor. In accordance with this order JSC NC KazMunayGas and the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) signed an agreement providing for the transportation of 1.5 million tonnes of oil per year from the Tengiz field in the direction of the pipeline "Baku - Tbilisi - Ceyhan".

Thus, in 2023, Kazakhstan increased the volume of oil exports in the direction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline to 1.392 million tonnes.

The Middle Corridor links the container railway freight networks of China and the European Union countries through Central Asia, the Caucasus, Türkiye and Eastern Europe.

A multilateral multimodal transport infrastructure links the Caspian and Black Sea ferry terminals with the railway systems of China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Türkiye, Ukraine and Poland.

The middle corridor facilitates increased cargo traffic from China to Türkiye, as well as to European countries and vice versa.

A route train travelling along this corridor delivers cargo from China to Europe in an average of 20-25 days, and this is one of the main advantages of this transport corridor.