Interfax cited Mr Kairgenldy Kabyldin chief of Kazakh national oil and gas company KazMunayGas as sying that the company could raise oil production 14% this year.

He said that "We're meeting our production targets and hope to achieve 14% growth in production and 13% growth in refining this year. Oil and gas transportation volumes should be level with last year.”

KMG produced just over 18.7 million tonnes of oil in 2009, up 4% from 2008.

Oil transportation along trunk pipelines rose 5% to 64 million tonnes and oil shipments by sea grew 27% to 7.3 million tonnes.

The company transported 90.9 billion cubic meters of gas, 22% less than in 2008.

(Sourced from Interfax)