Bishkek counts on gas price drop after Gazprom buys Kyrgyzgas
BISHKEK. Dec 21 (Interfax) - Kyrgyzstan is hoping that Gazprom's acquisition of 100% of the stock in OJSC Kyrgyzgas will be completed by next April.
"Kyrgyzgas's privatization will be wrapped up before April 1, 2013, and Russia's Gazprom plans to buy up the all the stock, even that held by owners," Kyrgyzgas General Director Turgunbek Kulmurzayev said at a press conference on Friday.
Right now, 75% of the enterprise's stock is government property and minority shareholders hold 15%. The question earlier was of Gazprom acquiring 75% of the shares.
Kulmurzayev said that Gazprom's acquisition of Kyrgyzgas "was discussed in Moscow on December 20 during a meeting between Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, who during the negotiations expressed the Russian position that Gazprom intends to take full responsibility for the Kyrgyz company."
Expectations are that after the privatization of the Kyrgyz company is complete Gazprom will invest some 20 billion rubles in Kyrgyzgas's development, including the overhaul of the country's gas pipelines.
The hope in Kyrgyzstan is that after Kyrgyzgas is sold the issue of gas supplies in the republic will be resolved, and also the matter of price, which could be lower than it is today. "The price for the fuel will be much lower than [for what] we buy from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. We are also hoping that Gazprom will help resolve the question of fuel deliveries in 2013," Kulmurzayev said.
During the negotiations in Moscow, he said, Russia's intentions to do geological surveying at Kyrgyzstan's southern Mailuu-Suu-4 and Kugart deposits were confirmed.