15 October 2015•Update: 15 October 2015
ASTANA, Kazakhstan
Russian President Vladimir Putin and President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a series of agreements on Thursday that might pave the way for oil production in the disputed Caspian Sea.
"We have a major plan to jointly produce oil in the Caspian Sea. This will enable oil companies of the two countries to manage two massive hydrocarbon sources in the Caspian Sea," Putin said.
"We made some adjustments to the previous deal signed in 1998," he added.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Caspian littoral states -- Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran -- started negotiations for the legal status of the sea. However, the wide divisions between these countries created a deadlock preventing the sharing of the sea’s rich hydrocarbon resources.
Putin also emphasized that most of the Kazakh oil would be exported through the Russian territory, but did not provide any additional information about its route.
In addition, the Russian president stated that Moscow wanted to develop its cooperation with Astana on nuclear activities.
"Russia and Kazakhstan are working on a joint electricity energy market. We are preparing to build Kazakhstan's first nuclear power plant," he said.
Although Kazakhstan has some of the largest uranium deposits and is the largest uranium producer in the world, it's only nuclear power plant, a BN-350 nuclear reactor at Mangyshlak, was decommissioned in 2001 after almost 30 years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
