The meeting participants discussed the prospects for expanding and strengthening energy cooperation between the two countries.
Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak had a meeting with Roman Sklyar, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation Nikolai Shulginov and Minister of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan Bolat Akchulakov also attended the meeting.
During their talks, the participants discussed key projects and the current state of relations between Russia and Kazakhstan in the fuel and energy sector, including oil and natural gas production and transportation. They focused on the partnership aimed at maintaining the high stability of the two countries’ power industry sector. Alexander Novak noted that, in the autumn of 2021, the System Operator of Russia’s Unified Energy System had joined the Electric Power Coordination Council of Central Asia with Kazakhstan’s support. “We believe that the Russian company’s involvement will create additional opportunities for ensuring accident-free operation of regional power grids. The recent major accident in the Joint Central Asian Power Grid shows the need to further coordinate the operation of Russian and Kazakhstani power grids,” the Russian Deputy Prime Minister said.
Russia and Kazakhstan are expanding their multilateral cooperation, including within the CIS Electric Power Coordination Council, the Eurasian economic Union and OPEC Plus, Alexander Novak added. The common goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 can become another promising aspect of cooperation between the two countries. “We share Kazakhstan’s striving to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. This ambitious task essentially calls for transforming the national economy and introducing renewable energy technologies on a wide scale. We believe that it is impossible to accomplish this task without creating a nuclear power industry. We also see considerable prospects for our interaction to expand the natural gas sector’s production and refuelling infrastructure, including via the Europe-West China international transport corridor and the Meridian Motorway,” Alexander Novak noted.
The Deputy Prime Minister also invited the Kazakhstani officials to attend the 25th World Energy Congress, scheduled to be held on 24-27 October 2022 in St Petersburg.