OREANDA-NEWS. September 18, 2014. The Kazakh government did not support entrepreneurs’ proposal to increase prices of diesel fuel and gasoline in Kazakhstan. It has been reported by First Vice Minister of Energy Uzakbai Karabalin during a briefing in the CCS.

"There is a big difference between the prices of oil products in Kazakhstan and Russia. At 128 tenge per liter of AI-92 gasoline in Kazakhstan, it has been around 160 tenge in Russia. For example, we can buy diesel fuel for 115 tenge per liter, in Russia - 172 tenge. Therefore, the proposal to increase the cost of diesel fuel and gasoline is not supported by the Government," U. Karabalin said.

He assured that price of gasoline and diesel fuel in Kazakhstan to remain, and will not change in near future.

Uzakbai Karabalin also said that the shortage of petroleum products may cause a delay in repair the Shymkent refinery.

"We are discussing and making a decision not to stop the Shymkent refinery this year, and move it to February-April, so that today we could load and provide plants (domestic market) with volumes of fuels and lubricants," U.Karabalin said at a briefing in CCS answering reporters' questions.

Scheduled repair at the Shymkent refinery may be postponed until February 2015.

However, he said that Kazakhstan refineries came to record levels for production of fuels and lubricants.

"This month, we will produce about 250 thousand tons of gasoline at our plants. Factories are working hard, fully loaded. But we expect the production of AI-92 to be around 186 thousand tons," U. Karabalin said.

He also stressed that the market demand for petroleum products in Kazakhstan is 280 thousand tons today.

"But as you know, we always import from Russia one-third of them," he added.

Earlier U.Karabalin reported that planned repair at the Shymkent refinery may be postponed until February 2015 due to scarcity of petroleum products in domestic market.

According to Vice Minister of Energy, Kazakhstan is considering possibility of importation of petroleum products from Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.

"KazMunaiGas" held negotiations, they are now being discussed, there is a possibility of importation of petroleum products from Azerbaijan Company "SOCAR", as well as Turkmenistan," U.Karabalin said.

He explained that therу is a difficult situation with the export of petroleum products in Russia due to recent major accident at the Achinsk refinery "Rosneft". In addition, some Russian refineries suspended their work.

"There is a scheduled repair. And another part of Russian volumes, which were previously on the balance this year, we think that Russia has additional regions where they can supply fuel. And in the end it turns out that today the Russian market is in some tension in the supply of petroleum products to other countries, including Kazakhstan," First Vice Minister of Energy concluded.