Kazakhstan to tighten state regulation of oil exports

/IRBIS, Feb.24, 00/ - REUTERS informs, with the reference to the prime- minister Kasymjomart Tokaev, that Kazakhstan intends to strictly regulate petroleum product exports further so that oil producing companies will supply three domestic refineries. Oil exports were limited to 22 mln tons for the year 2000 to provide with supplies three domestic refineries that were loaded at 30% of their full capacities last year. The prime-minister said the government had taken this step notwithstanding the negative reactions of oil producers because state regulation of oil exports should be tightened, since it is one of the most important sectors. He said the first step would be granting additional export opportunities to those who increases supplies to domestic refineries. There is no way to tolerate surging petroleum and lubricant prices and oil enterprises that stand idle in our country, said he. The prime-minister also said oil processing had risen 18.5% last month of this year relative to the same month of last year, and gasoline prices had decreased 7% on average. He implied such measures as custom duties could be imposed on oil exports if these measures are practically sound. Tokaev said the main task was to find out how to make petroleum and lubricant prices as cheap as possible for agricultural producers, since the country is preparing to spring field works. The prime-minister informed most of foreign and some domestic oil producers have exported oil in late last year at lower than world prices incurring about 1 bln U.S. dollar loss to the budget. He advised a special commission to check each company individually. Currently, the country's annual production is about 28-29 mln tons of oil.