Kazakhstan, Russia in talks over relocating firing ground

ASTANA, April 7 (Itar-Tass) - Kazakhstan and Russia are considering
the issue to relocate the Tajsangan firing ground, used by the Russian
military, to another district of the republic, Kazakh Minister of Oil and
Gas Sauat Mynbayev said here on Thursday.
"We learnt that there is an oil field in Tajsangan (west of the
country.) We're settling the issue now. If we develop the oil field in
that area, we'll accommodate the firing ground elsewhere," the minister
said at a session of the Senate (upper house of the Kazakh parliament).
The firing ground occupies an area of 750 hectares. It is located in
the area leased to Kazakhstan's Embamunaygaz oil producing companies for
conducting prospecting works in the 1990s.
The seismic and prospecting works were conducted in the area for the
first time in 1999-2001, when two deposits with extractable hydrocarbon
reserves of 1.5 million tons were found.
In all, Tajsangan has at least 50 million tons of extractable oil
reserves.
The surveys were stopped in 2002, as Kazakhstan and Russia signed an
agreement on leasing the firing ground to the Russian Valery Chkalov state
test flight center for trials of aircraft equipment.