Abstract
Kazakhstan is to pump 5bn cubic metres per year (cmy) of natural gas to China
through the Central Asian
pipeline from 2014 onwards, according to Vice
Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources Duisenbay
Turganov, speaking in
December 2008. The pipeline linking Turkmenistan and China, which crosses
Kazakhstan, would be completed by the end of 2009, the minister said. Its
initial 4.5bn cmy capacity
would be increased to at least US$30bn cmy and
Kazakhstan currently produces more than half the
region’s gas. In
our Kazakhstan Freight Transport Report 2008, BMI concludes that pipeline
throughput
can be expected to increase by an annual average of 8.7% per
annum.
Various factors support this prediction. The most important is the
rapid pace of development of new oil
and gas fields, and strong demand
from customers to both East and West. Our view is that despite a
pronounced global economic slowdown in 2009 and lower international oil
prices, Kazakhstan will still
benefit from hydrocarbons development. The
forecast is also underpinned by reasonable economic
growth and foreign
trade expansion over the next five years. We predict that the economy will
grow by an
annual average of 7% over the 2009-2013 period.
The overall
outlook for the Kazakh freight transport sector is positive. The rail sector
is poised to gain
from a round of new state investment in locomotives and
track, which should take the annual rise in
volume to 8.4% during the
2009-2013 period. Additionally, airfreight, based on the expected growth
of
Air Astana and others, will see a rise in volume of 8.4%. Road haulage
will grow slowest, but will still
achieve an impressive 7.7% expansion
rate. Kazakhstan scores 52.9 out of a theoretical maximum of 100,
in our
freight business environment rating. This score reflects the country’s
strength in transport intensity
– a measure of the dynamism of
foreign trade – and freight growth. Areas for improvement include
the
regulatory and competitive environments.
The total value of
transport and communications GDP will rise to US19.5bn in nominal terms by
2013,
representing 7.4% of Kazakhstan’s GDP. The transport and
communications sector employed 531,000
people, or 7.2% of the labour
force, last year. We see the total figure rising slightly to 549,000 by
2013
but remaining at 7.2% of the total.
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