Alexey Miller, CEO of Russia's "Gazprom" company, and Roman Sklyar, the First Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, have signed an agreement to increase the supply of Russian gas to Kazakhstan in 2025 and 2026.
The document was signed in Vladivostok within the framework of EEF-2025.
"The document was signed during a business meeting. The parties also discussed the progress and development prospects of cooperation in the fields of gas supply, transportation, and processing," the company stated.
In the first half of 2025, Russia supplied gas worth 320.9 million dollars to Kazakhstan.
Recall that after European countries stopped purchasing gas from Russia, Moscow pinned all its hopes on the Far East Asia.
According to Bloomberg, in mid-May this year, during Vladimir Putin's visit to China, the two country leaders discussed the "Power of Siberia-2" gas pipeline project.
It should be noted that the "Power of Siberia 2" gas pipeline envisages supplying an additional 50 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to China. Although the Russian side tried to implement this agreement with China for a long time, Beijing was still hesitant to agree in advance, even though Moscow emphasized repeatedly that this contract was inevitable.
According to claims, Mongolia poses the biggest obstacle for Russia in this matter. Ulaanbaatar does not want Russian gas to pass through its territory because it fears sanctions from the US and Europe. With various excuses, it sends Moscow a kind of "keep the problem away from me" message.
It appears that a common path has been found to both remove the hesitations of China and Mongolia and to realize Russia's ambitions. Russia will send the gas it plans to transport to China to Kazakhstan, and Kazakhstan will send part of its internal demand to China. Thus, both China and Mongolia will be saved from potential international pressures.
It should be noted that the annual natural gas consumption in Kazakhstan was 21.2 billion cubic meters in 2024. This represents a 9% increase compared to the previous period and surpasses the government's forecasts. By 2025, natural gas consumption is expected to grow due to the increase in the number of households in Kazakhstan, the use of gas as fuel for cars, and its role in production.
Kazakhstan has sufficient capacity to increase both domestic consumption and production. The brotherly country, which produced 59 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2024, plans to raise this figure to 62.8 billion cubic meters in 2025. Production is forecasted to reach 74 billion cubic meters by 2030.
Considering that Russia wants to sell 50 billion cubic meters of gas annually to China through the "Power of Siberia-2" project, it follows that if we subtract the 21.2 billion cubic meters of internal consumption from Kazakhstan's 62.8 billion cubic meters production this year, about 40 billion cubic meters will be resolved thanks to Astana. The remaining 10 billion cubic meters of gas will likely be attempted to be compensated by Turkmenistan.
Heydar Oghuz
