Kazakhastan will pump 5 billion cubic meters a year of natural gas into the Central Asian gas pipeline linking China from 2014, Duisenbay Turganov, vice-minister of Kazakhstan's Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, said Tuesday.
The pipeline linking Turkmenistan and China will be completed by the end of next year. An initial capacity of 4.5 billion cubic meters a year will be upgraded to at least 30 billion cubic meters by 2012.
Kazakhstan holds the Caspian area's largest crude oil reserves and pumps more than half of the region's gas.
Turganov spoke at the Eurasian Energy Summit in the southern Chinese city.