Kanat Bozumbayev: “It is critical to start exporting gasoline in October-November”

Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev spoke on the excess gasoline that Kazakhstan will import.

We are bound by agreement with Russia - you remember that we exported gasoline before. Until the beginning of this year, we brought 30 percent of all used gasoline. We brought it without customs duties, because we are in the same Eurasian space. We have pledged to the Russian Federation that we will not export gasoline - so that we do not re-export. To avoid this: we will buy gas and “shuran” to Tajikistan, we will earn it, because they sell there with a duty. In this regard, we have made a bilateral commitment that we will not export.

Now, after the modernization of the plants, which is practically completed - these days the Shymkent oil refinery is being commissioned and the catalytic cracking unit, which has never been there, will start working by the end of the month - we will increase the processing of light products. Accordingly, our gasoline output will increase significantly. Therefore, it is critical to start exporting in October-November. Or we just stop this installation. Because today, even two modernized plants and an unmodified Shymkent plant gave us a gasoline surplus. And today, 340-350 thousand tons of gasoline are available in the possession of owners of resource holders. If it is 500, then it will be a complete “backlog” in the country. All this led to a significant reduction in gasoline prices. As they say, there would be no happiness and unhappiness! The price has decreased by 10 percent since the beginning of the year.

Therefore, we are now systematically working on a draft of a new agreement between the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan and the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, which lies in the Government of the Russian Federation. As soon as the Russian government authorizes my colleague Alexander Novikov to sign it, it is possible that this will happen in the next week or two, and I have already been authorized to do this a week and a half ago by a relevant decree of the Kazakh Government, we will sign the corresponding agreement.

We are completing negotiations with our Kyrgyz colleagues - the touches remain. We did not export these products, being in the union and here there are features. This difference in prices is significant, in the domestic market between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. There are, of course, the risks that as soon as we slightly open the border, gasoline will run to where it is more expensive, because the markets there, compared to ours, are premium.

With the countries to which we will supply gasoline, we will conclude an appropriate Agreement, in which joint balances will be recorded. That is, in what month, how many we will sell and above we will not sell. And - the point! And we will sell exactly the volume that will be a surplus for our market. Everything that the domestic market needs, we will fully ensure the priority of the “domestic market”!