Today, in the town of Uralsk (Republic of Kazakhstan), Alexey Miller, Chairman of the OAO Gazprom Management Committee and Makhambet Batyrbayev, Vice President of JSC NC KazMunayGas have entered into an Agreement on the terms of gas transmission and supply to Kazakhstan, on a mutual deliveries basis inclusive.

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Cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan in the gas industry is regulated by the following Inter-Governmental Agreements for: The Cooperation and Development of the Fuel and Energy Complexes, dated December 25, 1993 (annually signed Protocols apply); The Technical & Economic Cooperation and Integration in the Oil and Gas Industries, dated February 25, 1997; The Cooperation in the Gas Industry, dated November 28, 2001.

In June 2002, Gazprom and the KazMunayGas National Company founded the 50/50 Kazakhstan-based KazRosGaz joint venture dealing with natural gas procurement, marketing and processing at Russian plants as well as with other activities.

The bilateral cooperation between Gazprom and Kazakhstan’s companies hinges on the following major joint businesses:

• processing of the Karachaganak gas condensate field feedstock at the Orenburg Gas Processing Plant;
• services provided by Gazprom’s affiliates to ensure Kazakhstan’s gas transit across the Russian Federation to the CIS;
• supply of Russian natural gas to Kazakhstan’s Kostanai province;
• transit of Central Asian gas through the Republic of Kazakhstan in increasing volumes as stipulated by the existing long-term agreements.

In September 2006, the Gazprom Board of Directors approved setting up on a par with KazMunayGas a Russia-Kazakhstan joint venture based on the processing capacities of the Orenburg Gas Processing Plant.

The new joint venture will process hydrocarbon resources of the Orenburg Oblast and Karachaganak field on a processing fee basis. Creating the joint venture on the platform of the Orenburg GPP and boosting Karachaganak gas processing volumes will help ensure, given the heavier composition of feedstock at the field, the full loading of all existing and new upgraded capacities in the long term. The maximum processing amount (30.6 bcm including 15 bcm of gas from the Karachaganak field) will be reached in 2012.

Setting up such a joint venture will help Gazprom not only modernize the Orenburg GPP capacities and ensure their full loading, but also receive extra gas volumes and profit.