A feasibility study for a project to pipeline Kazakh natural gas to China will be put ready by autumn next year, a senior official at Kazakh national oil and gas company KazMunaiGaz said on Thursday. Kairgeldy Kabyldin, KazMunaiGaz's managing director for transport and service projects, made the announcement at the KIOGE- 2003 international oil and gas conference in Almaty.

He was referring to the planned Kazakh section of the planned West- East pipeline to link the two countries. He said China had finished laying a 2,500-kiloemter stretch of a 4,000-kiloemter pipeline section that will link Urumchi to Shanghai.

The project involves development of fields in the Tarim basin in China, and the sale of gas in the east of the country.

The gas production would initially be 12 billion cubic meters a year.

Russian gas monopoly Gazprom, Shell, ExxonMobil, and PetroChina, a subsidiary of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), are involved in the project.

(Interfax 10.x.03)