Kazakhstan proposes Russia to transit gas to China through its territory

Astana. March 24. Silkroadnews - "Kazakhstan offers Gazprom to use the existing infrastructure in the country to export gas to China", - reported KazTAG citing the newspaper "Kommersant".
According to the publication, now Russia's "Gazprom" supplies the southern regions of Kazakhstan through the pipeline Bukhara-Ural (in autumn 2014 running in reverse mode), then the gas is fed into the pipeline Bozoi-Shymkent, which is connected to the main gas pipeline Central Asia-China, in which Beijing receives gas from Turkmenistan.
According to the Chairman of the Board of JSC "National Company "KazMunaiGas" (KMG) Sauat Mynbayev, now gas from the pipeline Bozoi-Shymkent due to the low pressure in the pipe can not be sent to the Central Asia-China. But Kazakhstan is planning to increase the capacity of the pipe Bozoi-Shymkent from 2.5 billion to 10 billion cubic meters by installing three compressor stations.
"Such a scheme would be beneficial for Kazakhstan, as would allow partially to offset the decline in transit payments due to falling transport through the gas pipeline Central Asia-Center", - emphasized in the material.
In August 2014 Kazakhstan has already offered "Gazprom" to export gas through its territory via the the pipe Ishim-Petropavlovsk-Kokshetau-Astana-Karaganda with access to the Kazakh-Chinese border near Khorgos. Then the "Gazprom" said that it would consider the proposal.
For the use of the Bukhara-Ural in reverse mode "Gazprom" stated that this scheme allows Kazakhstan to reduce imports of Uzbek gas.
However, Gasprom did not comment on the use of the route for the export to China. But the source in the company said that "the proposal does not look very attractive and in any case, construction of the "Altai" remains an absolute priority".