Kazakhstan, keen to become a global gas exporter, is looking for export routes to Western markets which avoid the network of Russia\'s Gazprom , the head of the Kazakh gas pipeline company was quoted on Tuesday as saying. Kazakhstan, a large oil producer and exporter, has big reserves of natural gas. It wants to raise its weight as a gas exporter on the global market but its main concern is export routes. \"Kazakh gas exports to Europe are constrained by ... the necessity to obtain access to the gas transport system of Russia\'s Gazprom due to our geographic location,\" KazTransGas head Serik Sultangaliyev told Express-Kazakhstan newspaper. \"We understand really well that in this situation development of Kazakhstan\'s natural gas industry is impossible without cooperation with Russia. But at the same time we are looking for new ways to export energy to the global markets.\" Sultangaliyev said one option would be to lay a gas pipeline on Caspian Sea bed to link the Kazakh oil port of Aktau with the Azeri capital Baku. The European Union and some littoral states favour the route but Russia is against it. \"This idea is still being discussed,\" he said. Europe, which gets a quarter of its gas from Russia, is also looking for alternative sources after Moscow cut supplies briefly at the beginning of the year due to a row with Ukraine. Kazakhstan is a close political ally of Russia but it wants to diversify export routes. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are Central Asia\'s biggest gas exporters. Kazakhstan has so far exported very little gas, partly due to a lack of export infrastructure. Encouraged by high global prices, it now wants to cash in on its gas reserves. The energy ministry expects Kazakhstan to be pumping up to 45 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year by 2015. It has built an oil pipeline serving China and wants to export oil through the U.S.-backed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline that avoids Russia and runs from Azerbaijan to Turkey. (Reuters)