Chinese and Kazakh state companies have signed an agreement to expand the existing China-Kazakhstan crude oil pipeline, China National Petroleum Corp said Monday on its website.
The agreement was signed Saturday during talks held between Chinese president Xi Jinping and Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev in the Chinese southern city of Sanya, which is currently hosting the Boao Forum for Asia.
CNPC said the pact with Kazakh state company KazMunaiGas was an in-principle agreement to expand the pipeline, without giving further details.
Kazakhstan had started expansion of the Atasu-Alashankou section of the 12 million mt/year oil pipeline, and was eyeing further expansion of the remaining Atyrau-Atasu section as well, Platts reported in October. The Kazakh plan is to expand the pipeline to 20 million mt/year.
The pipeline starts in Atyrau, western Kazakhstan, and passes Atasu in Central Kazakhstan. It is designed to bring crude oil from West Kazakh provinces to Alashankou (Alataw Shankou) in China's northwestern Xinjiang province, where it then joins CNPC's domestic crude oil pipeline network.
Apart from increasing supplies of Kazakhstan's crude oil to China, the expansion project also aims to provide capacities for transport of additional Russian crude volumes to complement existing supplies via Atasu-Alashankou to CNPC.
