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Friday,
August 10- August 24,
2007, #152 (1419)
Oil was top of the agenda when President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev visited Kazakhstan. On 8 August, Kazakhstan's Khazmounaigaz signed an agreement with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR), on strategic cooperation in the oil and gas sectors and on joint trans-Caspian projects. In June 2006 the two countries formerly agreed to cooperate on transiting Kazakhstani oil through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. The memorandum also calls for the construction of oil terminals on the Kazakhstani and Azerbaijani coasts of the Caspian Sea, which would then be linked to the BTC pipeline. Azerbaijan has long opposed transferring Central Asian energy resources through Russia, writes the news agency Regnum, while Kazakhstan maintains a good relationship with Moscow. Azerbaijan is also
interested in a pipeline which would connect the Kazakhstani port of
Aktau to Baku. |
With Aliyev in
Almaty, Kazakhstani oil tops agenda
