OREANDA-NEWS. December 06, 2011. Chinese oil refineries will process Kazakh crude in a deal under negotiation that will lessen Astana’s reliance on Russia for refined oils, a top Kazakh minister revealed.

“In order to reduce our dependence on Russia, we are agreeing on tolling [third-party processing], including with Chinese refineries,” the Reuters news agency reported Oil and Gas Minister Sauat Mynbayev as saying at a government meeting in the capital.

Central Asia’s leading oil producer hopes to supply between 1 million and 1.5 million tons of oil to China’s Dushanzi refinery, located in the western Xinjiang region.

The arrangement is also intended to help cap rising prices of refined fuels.

In a new deal with Russia to tackle price rises, Kazakhstan’s state-operated gas and oil firm KazMunaiGas (KMG) will buy 55,100 tons of gasoline from Moscow at a loss, the energy minister told the government.

Kazakh national welfare fund Samruk-Kazyna will compensate the state energy corporation for the losses, he said.