(Yicai Global) Jan. 16 -- Kazakhstan will lift its annual natural gas exports to China to ten billion by the end of next year, the country's Kazinform news agency reported. It now pipes five billion cubic meters.

KazTransGas JSC struck a new deal with China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) to raise its supplies to China, the former said, per the agency.

Most of Kazakhstan's gas has traditionally flowed to neighboring Central and Eastern European nations. Kazakhstan exported 22 billion cubic meters in 2014, of which about 460 million went to China.

Kazakhstan has now begun large-scale gas deliveries to China with the connection at the start of October of Kazakhstan's domestic natural gas pipeline with the Central Asia-China transnational gas pipeline, public information shows.