KAZAKHSTAN, CHINA FINALIZING PIPELINE PLAN.

Kazakhstan’s pipeline operator Kazakhtransoil and China’s Oil and Gas Industry Company (a subsidiary of the China National Petroleum Corporation) signed yesterday in Almaty an agreement to prepare the technical and financial plan of an oil export pipeline from western Kazakhstan to China. The agreement envisages completing the joint plan by October 1998 and signing the construction contract by spring 1999.

Yesterday’s agreement follows up on the general agreement to build that pipeline, signed in September 1997 during Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng’s visit to Kazakhstan. The pipeline’s projected length is more than 3,000 kilometers and its cost is estimated at more than US$3 billion. (Xinhua, Russian agencies, June 15)–VS

DEBATE CONTINUES OVER KAZAKHSTAN’S NEW CAPITAL.