Szijjarto: Kazakhstan set to be key source for Hungary energy security

Speaking after a Hungarian-Kazakh summit, Szijjarto highlighted energy cooperation as a main topic on the meeting’s agenda, saying the global political, economic and security crises of recent years had made it harder to guarantee Europe’s energy supply.

“We, Hungarians are doing well on this front, because we view energy security not as a political issue, but as one of physical reality, which means we’ll be able to guarantee the security of Hungary’s energy supply as we have so far,” Szijjarto said, according to a ministry statement.

Diversification will remain crucial in the future as well, and Hungary’s government assigns strategic importance to securing as many energy sources as possible for the country, he said.

“In our case, this doesn’t mean that we want to replace an existing source with another, but that we want to be able to procure energy from as many sources as possible,” he added.

Szijjarto said Kazakhstan was set to be a key source for diversification in the coming period, as the Central Asian country was set to play a bigger role when it came to oil and natural gas deliveries to Hungary.

“This year we’re already buying a record volume of oil from Kazakhstan, which will be delivered to Hungary through pipelines and by sea,” the minister said.

Hungary is set to receive some 630,000 tonnes of oil from Kazakhstan this year owing to the government’s successful efforts in Brussels to exempt oil extraction in the Caspian Sea region from sanctions, he said.

Meanwhile, Szijjarto welcomed that Hungarian oil and gas company MOL and its Chinese partners will begin the extraction of the Karpovsky gas field in Kazakhstan next month. The rise in production will see MOL’s extraction rate reach about 100 million cubic metres a year, he said, adding that a decision could be made about its sale once it was processed.

The fact that there is Hungarian ownership in this gas field in Kazakhstan will bolster Hungary’s energy security in the coming years, Szijjarto said.

Hungary and Kazakhstan’s energy cooperation underlines the importance of their strategic cooperation, he said, arguing that few areas today were more strategic than contributions to each other’s energy security.