By Lidia Kelly
(Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss energy ties on a visit to Kazakhstan this week, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, a trip that comes amid trade tensions with the Central Asian nation, which exports most of its oil through Russia.
Kazakhstan, which has tried to distance itself from Moscow’s war in Ukraine, remains highly dependent on Russia for exporting oil to Western partners and for imports of food, electricity and refined oil products.
“Our countries are … constructively cooperating in the oil and gas sector,” Putin wrote in an article “Russia – Kazakhstan: a union demanded by life and looking to the future” for the Kazakhstanskaya Pravda newspaper and published on the Kremlin’s website late on Tuesday.
Putin’s article came after Kazakhstan’s energy minister on Monday said his country could sharply increase its crude oil exports out of Turkey’s port of Ceyhan, a move that would reduce the share of flows it currently sends via Russia.
Underscoring that more than 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil is exported to foreign markets through Russia, Putin, who starts his visit to Kazakhstan on Wednesday, said he and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev always focus on “a specific result” in their talks.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told journalists on Tuesday, without providing further detail, that Putin and Tokayev will sign a protocol on extending an agreement on oil supplies to Kazakhstan.
Putin also said in his article that Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom – already involved in some projects in Kazakhstan – “is ready for new large-scale projects”.
In October, Kazakhstan, a nation of 20 million, voted in favour of constructing its first nuclear power plant, under a Tokayev-backed plan that faced public criticism and concerns that Russia would be involved in the project.
Putin’s visit also comes amid agricultural trade tensions following a Russian ban on imports of grain, fruit and other farm products from Kazakhstan in October.
Moscow imposed the ban after Kazakhstan refused to join BRICS, the bloc of emerging economies which Putin hopes to build as a powerful counterweight to the West in global politics and trade.
(Writing by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Sonali Paul)
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