Kazakhstan opens first CIS oil pipeline to China

Jul 21, 2006, 15:08 GMT

Moscow - Kazakhstan has activated the first oil pipeline to China from the former Soviet republics, officials in the Central Asian republic said Friday.

The almost 1,000-kilometre line linking Atasu in northern Kazakhstan to Xinjiang on the Chinese border will carry up to 20 million tons of oil a year, the Kazakh energy company KazTransOil told the Interfax news agency.

Russia now plans to hook up the top of the line with oilfields in western Siberia and also open a direct pipeline to China in two years. Russian and Kazakh oil was previously transported to China by rail.

The pipeline projects are part of rapidly expanding energy cooperation between the neighbours.

In June, Sinopec became the first Chinese oil company to join production work in Russia, buying the Udmurtneft oil company in the Volga region for an estimated 3.8 billion dollars.

This month the Chinese state oil company CNPC bought a more than 500-million-dollar stake in the Russian state oil company Rosneft.