OREANDA-NEWS. February 17, 2014. Minister of Oil and Gas of Kazakhstan Uzakbai Karabalin assured reporters that there will not be any fuel shortages this year.

"Our plants work competently, and they produce that much oil to be used entirely on the market. Any export from Kazakhstan will be banned, therefore all products will be used only for us," the Head of MOG said at CCS briefing.

According to him, those reserves that we have now, will allow to keep and regulate prices for 30-45 days. "For some reason everyone thought we were going to live only by these stocks. In fact, I repeat that our plants are functioning, the major part of petroleum products are supplied by them. Reserves are needed to correct," U. Karabalin explained.

Interest to import Russian oil products in Kazakhstan was high enough before adjustment of tenge, the Head of MOG says. "Due to changes in the rate of tenge we are going to see what interests have buyers and suppliers in the future. Now we are going to watch, and we will be able take effective measures to keep the prices of petroleum products over the period of time," he added.

According to the Head of the MOG, domestic production of gasoline will be 2.885 million tons; consumption will be 4,168,000 tons this year. "That means today's consumption exceeds production same as last year," U. Karabalin said.

It should be noted that Kazakhstan produced more than 2.7 million tons of gasoline, imported about 1.3 million tons in 2013. Domestic consumption will be about 4 million tons. Stock in petroleum storage depot was about 370 thousand tons. In 2014 it is planned to import 1 million 69,000 tons of gasoline.

4.2 million tons of diesel fuel was produced, 700 thousand tons was imported in 2013.