Atyrau and Astrakhan rgns to develop Caspian oilfield production coop

ASTRAKHAN. KAZINFORM "Cooperation between the Astrakhan oblast of Russia and Kazakhstan expands in various fields," Alexander Zhilkin, head of the oblast, said at a meeting with Kazakh Ambassador to Russia Marat Tazhin.

"The Astrakhan oblast and Atyrau region have close trading ties,enjoy close cooperation in the spheres of education, medicine and culture. Besides, the regions foster interaction in joint development of oil deposits in the shelf zone of the Caspian Sea both in Russia and Kazakhstan. We have realized lots of offshore field infrastructure development projects. And we will move further. Another direction of our cooperation is an expansion of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium in the territory of the Astrakhan oblast to pipe Kazakhstan's oil to Europe. It is a very important joint project," he added.