NUR-SULTAN

Kazakhstan intends to increase its oil refining capacity to 17.9 million tonnes in 2022, up from 17 million tonnes last year.

Last year, the Central Asian country increased oil refining capacity at its three largest refineries – the Atyrau Oil Refinery, Pavlodar Oil Chemistry Refinery and PetroKazakhstan Oil Products – by 7.7 percent year-on-year, Bolat Akchulakov, the country’s energy minister, told reporters.

In July 2021, the Energy Ministry said that Kazakhstan planned to boost refining volumes by 7.6 percent year-on-year to 17 million tonnes and increase production of refined products by 7.8 percent to 12.4 million tonnes in 2021. Oil refining is the process by which crude oil is transformed and refined into useful products including petroleum naphta, gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil and fuel oil.

The processing capacities at the Shymkent refinery, which has an operating capacity of 6 million tonnes per year, will be expanded, the minister said.

Akchulakov said that the maximum retail price for petroleum products was set at the level of 182 tenge ($0.42) per litre for AI-92 and AI-93 fuel, 215 tenge per litre for AI-95, 260 tenge per litre for diesel fuel for the next six months.

“The ministry is working with other state bodies to develop mechanisms and proposals for a pricing scheme after this period. It is necessary to increase processing capacities to prevent fuel shortages. The construction of a new plant takes quite a long time and financing. We are considering expanding the production capacities at the Shymkent refinery,” Akchulakov said.

The ministry also plans to introduce an extended overhaul period at the refineries.

“We developed a schedule of repairs for a five-year period. This allows us to suspend production at one plant out of three plants once a year,” he added.

The minister ruled out any fuel shortages this year and said that a reserve for 150,000 tonnes of oil products would be created by the KazMunayGas National company and 50,000 tonnes by the KTZ National company in the first quarter of 2022.

In early January, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev instructed his government to introduce state regulation of prices for liquefied gas and petroleum for six months to stabilise the economic situation.