Russia vows to stick to oil and gas agreements with Kazakhstan
MOSCOW. March 17 (Interfax) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Russia would stick to its commitments under agreements with Kazakhstan on Caspian oil and gas projects despite the fact that the part of a field that has gone over to Kazakhstan after being divided between the two nations has proved to have poorer reserves than initially projected.
"It has turned out that the field where the Russian side began to work and that went over to Russia is really rich whereas the field that Kazakhstan received - well, explorations have not confirmed the initial findings of specialists, let's put it that way," Putin said at a meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
"Despite this, we will keep our promises and will work fifty-fifty in all the fields under the earlier agreements," Putin said.
Nazarbayev said Russia had invested $3.5 billion in Kazakhstan for the past five years and that Kazakhstan had invested $1.5 billion in Russia over the same period.