The two sides have reached an agreement on three oilfields which have long been in dispute because they are located on the median line. Under the document signed they will be developed jointly on a 50/50 basis.
Mr Putin noted that Russia and Kazakhstan had taken an important step to strengthen cooperation. In his opinion that milestone in bilateral relations would exert a major positive impact on the partners in Europe and North America.
Mr Nazarbayev said that work was underway to launch the joint project between Gazprom and Kazakhstan’s gas companies to transport gas from Kazakhstan via Russian gas pipelines. He said that successful cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan was a model of the path all the countries involved in solving the complex of Caspian problems should follow.
The protocol covers the Kurmangazy, Tsentralnoye and Kvalynskoye fields in the northern Caspian.