The press service of the national company KazTransGas recently announced that Kyrgyzstan has paid off its debt to Kazakhstan for natural gas consumed after 2004. The total amount of $41.6 million includes the gas supply prices, as well as unauthorised gas pickup between 2004 and 2014.
KazTransGas was facing the problem of delayed payments coming from the Kyrgyz side for delivered gas over the past ten years. The Kazakh side warned the payer several times by sending official letters of demand to redeem the debt. The issue has been also repeatedly considered on the intergovernmental level. In 2008, KazTransGas appealed to the court against KyrgyzGaz, but despite the final prescript of the Specialized Inter-District Economic Court of Astana, the debt hadn’t been extinguished.
In February 2014, the Russian gas operator Gazprom bought 100 percent of shares of KyrgyzGaz and became an absolute owner of the assets of the Kyrgyz gas operator.
After that, numerous meetings and negotiations were held with the participation of KazTranGas and Gazprom Kyrgyzstan representatives, as a result of which both sides finally solved the problem. For now the Gazprom Kyrgyzstan company has no more arrearages to the Kazakh side.
