KAZAKHSTAN: China buys into giant oilfield for $5 billion

Record ID: 872569

  • Title: KAZAKHSTAN: China buys into giant oilfield for $5 billion
  • Date: 7th September 2013
  • Summary: KASHAGAN OILFIELD, KAZAKHSTAN (FILE - 2009) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) VARIOUS AERIAL SHOTS OF ARTIFICIAL ISLANDS BEING BUILT IN CASPIAN SEA TO HOUSE OIL STORAGE FACILITIES
  • Embargoed: 22nd September 2013 13:00
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  • Topics: Economic News,Energy
  • Reuters ID: LVA9FI0HOEA7WUWZ6LWYK9EAQPTH
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  • Story Text: Chinese President Xi Jinping struck a deal with Kazakhstan on Saturday (September 7) that will give China a stake in the its giant Kashagan oil project, a highlight of his tour of Central Asia securing fuel for the world's largest energy consumer.
    The $5 billion U.S. dollar deal further increases China's rising clout in post-Soviet Central Asia, once Russia's imperial backyard, and blocks an attempt by global rival India to get a stake in the oilfield, the world's largest oil discovery in five decades.
    Xi and Kazakh President Nursultan attended a welcoming ceremony and sat down for talks before attending a signing ceremony in the capital Astana, official Chinese broadcaster CCTV reported.
    In a statement to the media after the signing, Xi told reporters that the two countries had reached an agreement and that their governments supported it.
    Oil and gas deals, including on building an oil refinery in Kazakhstan, are among 22 agreements reached during Xi's visit and worth some $30 billion U.S. dollars, Nazarbayev said.
    Kazakhstan will sell 8.33 percent of the Kashagan offshore oilfield to China for about $5 billion U.S. dollars in a deal to be signed later on Saturday, Kazakh government sources told Reuters.
    The sale and purchase agreement will be signed by the heads of Kazakh national oil and gas company KazMunaiGas and China National Petroleum Corp, said the officials, who requested anonymity.
    China is already involved in a number of oil projects in the vast resource-rich neighbour, which is five times the size of France but has a population of just 17 million.
    This week, Xi visited Kazakhstan's neighbour Turkmenistan, which holds the world's fourth-largest natural gas reserves, and oversaw deals aiming to boost gas supplies and build a pipeline to China.
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