Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told Putin on Monday that Russia and Kazakhstan would divide the Imashevskoye gas condensate field equally. “The territory will be divided in equal parts, as well as the gas field itself,” Lavrov said, adding this was the last controversial issue of border delimitation.

The two leaders are also expected to sign an accord on environmental protection against pollution from use of Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. During his official visit to Moscow, the Kazakh leader is due to tour the Khrunichev state space center.

During Putin’s recent visit to Kazakhstan, the two presidents discussed implementing Russian-Kazakh oil projects. Nazarbayev told Putin at the time the Kazakh ministry for energy and mineral resources was considering three large oil projects and preparing to sign a deal with Russia’s LUKoil, ploughing an estimated $2 billion into the Kazakh energy sector.

Commenting on the planned upgrade of the Caspian Pipeline consortium from 28 million tons to 67 million tons a year, the Kazakh leader called it “very serious work that has somewhat slowed down.” Both Russia and Kazakhstan would benefit from the project coming on stream, Nazarbayev told Russia’s head of state.

Negotiations were under way to process Kazakhstan’s Karachaganak gas at Russia’s Orenburg processing plant, he said, having rated this “a very advantageous project for both sides.”

Putin is on record praising a high level of Russian-Kazakh ties over past years. “We are happy with progress in our relations,” the Russian president told his opposite number, as Nazarbayev called contact with Moscow Kazakhstan’s key foreign affairs priority.

After the close of a “Year of Russia” in Kazakhstan, trade turnover between the two countries had risen 47 percent to $7 billion, the Kazakh leader revealed. Russian goods represent a quarter of Kazakhstan’s foreign trade.