Russ Oil-Gas

6/15/09 - Eurasia.net - The Kyrgyz parliament has approved a draft agreement on the sale of KyrgyzGaz to Russia's Gazprom. Gazprom hopes to take a 75-percent-plus-one share stake in the debt-ridden company. "In doing so, they are required to reliably supply gas to all consumers as well as to modernize and reconstruct the existing equipment, make major repairs of pipelines and all the debts that are now on the balance sheet belong to the Russian investors," Tursun Turdumambetov, the chairman of the State Property Committee, said on June 15. Renovation and upkeep of Kyrgyzstan's aging gas infrastructure is expected to cost about $400 million, media reports added. Earlier in June, Gazprom announced it was prepared to invest $300 million in exploration work in Kyrgyzstan over the next three years. Kyrgyzstan is estimated to have gas reserves of 6 billion cubic meters.