MOSCOW, May 20: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev on Saturday stressed close bilateral cooperation on energy resources and announced a compromise on the price of gas extracted by Russia in Kazakhstan.

“We have achieved significant progress in resolving questions of cooperation in the energy sphere,” Putin said at a meeting at his holiday home at Sochi on the Black Sea.

“Our specialists have reached accord on extraction, processing and transport of Kazakh gas,” ITAR-TASS quoted Putin as saying.

Kazakhstan in Central Asia, once a constituent republic of the former Soviet Union, is now an independent state but remains close to Russia.

“Agreement was reached on pricing, a point which had hitherto been difficult during negotiations,” said Putin, describing the accord as “a compromise satisfying both sides.” The subject of Russian gas prices has been particularly delicate after it led to tensions between Moscow and another ex-Soviet Republic, Ukraine, earlier this year.

Moscow’s standoff in January with Ukraine over gas prices also hit deliveries to Western Europe.

Putin did not specify on Saturday whether he was referring to a major new gas find at Imashev in Kazakhstan.

Russia and Kazakhstan reached agreement at the start of this year on development of this field.

That accord stipulates that the two sides have equal rights in joint extraction of the field, but details of the conditions of operation remained unclear. Analysts believe it is to be developed by the Russian energy giant Gazprom and the Kazakh state-owned oil company KazMunaiGaz.

Moscow turned off the taps on gas shipments to Ukraine in January, crimping deliveries to some western European countries and exposing the European Union’s growing dependence on Russia for energy supplies.

Under a deal finally agreed between Russia and Ukraine, the price that Ukraine pays for its gas imports from Russia nearly doubled to $95 per 1,000 cubic metres after Moscow demanded a nearly five-fold increase.—AFP