NUR-SULTAN / ex ASRANA (TASS) — Kazakhstan is considering the possibility of joining the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline project to extract gas in the East Kazakhstan Region, First Vice Minister of Energy Makhambet Dosmukhambetov told reporters on Tuesday.

The project is currently under consideration and negotiations, the minister said. He explained:

The gas field in the East Kazakhstan Region has relatively small gas volumes, which do not allow ensuring supplies to the whole area, only in the regional scale. If Russia and China construct the Power of Siberia 2 [gas pipeline] and [it runs] through the Kazakh territory, we will have an opportunity to extract gas in the east using that gas pipeline. Alternatively, we will be considering other options — from Barnaul [joining the gas transport system]. However, those issues should be explored thoroughly and (the questions) what gas, what costs and how reliable that will be should be analyzed.

"Not only the price, the reliability is also a very important aspect, which is why in certain cases we suggest that two alternative sources should be used,

In 2015, Russia’s Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed an agreement on main terms of pipeline gas supplies from western Siberian fields to China via the “eastern route” (the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline). It stipulates that 38 bln m³ of gas per year will be supplied to the People’s Republic China. In 2015, Gazprom and CNPC also signed memorandum of understanding on the project of pipeline supplies of natural gas to China from Russia’s Far East.