Russia and Kazakhstan sign deal on massive Caspian oil field

The heads of Russia and Kazakhstan’s largest state oil companies signed a deal on exploiting the massive Kurmangazy field in the Caspian Sea at a ceremony attended by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The agreement between Russia’s Rosneft and Kazakhstan’s Kazmunaigaz resolved two years of wrangling over the tax conditions applying to exploitation of the field, which spans the two countries’ sea border and is estimated to hold about a billion tonnes of oil, officials said.