Tag Archives: fuel

Kazmunaigas to boost petrol market

SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazmunaigas Processing and Marketing (KMG P&M), a branch of the state-owned oil and gas company Kazmunaigas, said it wants to increase its brand’s share of the petrol retail market in Kazakhstan to around 33%. KMG P&M currently owns 324 petrol stations across the country representing 12% of the total. The company is selling 146 stations to private investors to reduce costs. The new owners will keep the Kazmunaigas brand. KMG P&M will then buy more stations to increase the number of petrol stations carrying its brand.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Kazakh government ditches petrol price controls

SEPT. 4 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government scrapped petrol price controls, another major admission that the market rather than the state is better placed to direct its economy.

Government officials blamed the volatility in foreign exchange markets for scrapping price controls on petrol which immediately jumped in price by around 40%.

Pressured by low oil prices, rising inflation and the depressed value of the Russian rouble, the Kazakh Central Bank released the tenge from its US dollar peg last month. It fell 23% in one day and is now trading at an all-time low of around 262/$1 which made petrol excessively cheap.

Deputy PM Bakhytzhan Sagintayev was handed the task of explaining the new policy to journalists.

“Having studied all possible options and discussed the issue with market players, we decided there should be a flexible pricing model given the ongoing volatility at the FX market,” he said. “The Government has decided to stop regulating prices for AI-92 and AI-93 petrol.”

In Almaty, Kazakhstan largest city, the effect was immediate. Queues snaked out of petrol stations as drivers rushed to fill their tanks.

Guldariya Iskakova, an accountant, summed up the feeling of people in Almaty about the petrol price rises. “It is awful. We are now seriously thinking to use public bus,” she said. “Our expenses have increased several times. The prices for petrol increased by 20 tenge in just one day.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Iran suggests petrol imports for Kazakhstan

JULY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran could export refined oil products to Kazakhstan, Vahid Ahmadi, the Iranian deputy science minister, told media. This is important because Kazakhstan is looking for ways to boost its supply of oil-based products.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

Georgia’s anti-monopoly agency fines petrol retailers

JULY 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s Competition Agency fined the country’s five largest petrol retailers $23m for price fixing. The companies fined were SOCAR Georgia Petroleum, Sun Petroleum Georgia, Rompetrol Georgia, Wissol Petroleum Georgia, and Lukoil Georgia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)

Kazakhstan to boost petrol production

JUNE 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan plans to produce the higher grade AI-92 and AI-95 petrol at a refinery in the north of the country, media reported quoting the Kazakh Development Bank. Kazakhstan has a shortage of refined oil products.

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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)

SOCAR becomes biggest company in Georgia

MAY 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Outside the financial sector, SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state energy company, is the largest company in Georgia, media reported quoting research from Ilia University in Tbilisi. SOCAR Petroleum Georgia is a SOCAR subsidiary. Its main business in Georgia is a network of petrol stations.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 232, published on May 20 2015)

Azerbaijan to start producing higher grade fuel

MAY 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan will start producing AI-95 grade petrol from 2018 to meet higher demand, said the vice president of the state- owned energy company SOCAR, David Mammadov. Azerbaijan currently produces AI-92, a lower grade of fuel. The government has been pushing people to buy more modern cars.

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(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)

Azerbaijan raises fuel prices

>>People in Baku worry that fuel price rises may also accelerate inflation>>

JAN. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Oil prices may be falling on the world market but in Azerbaijan the cost of filling your car with either petrol or diesel has actually increased.

The government announced that it was putting the price of fuel up by 0.02 manat to 0.7 manat ($0.9) for a litre of petrol and 0.62 manat for diesel.

This sounds like a marginal increase only but, given the 50% drop in oil prices, actually represents a sharp rise.

Independent observers say that this is another attempt to fill the state budget, so dependent on oil revenue, with cash.

The government, though, has said the price increase was due to the inclusion of a road tax on oil products produced in Azerbaijan for domestic consumption, as well as imported from abroad.

In a suburb of Baku, 52-year-old taxi driver Ahmed Huseynov was waiting for customers at a taxi rank. It was a damp, dreary afternoon. The roads and rooftops were sodden and slippery after the first snows of the year.

“Every day we hear on the news that oil prices are decreasing which logically should have led to a decrease in fuel prices too,” he said. “I don’t understand the government’s decision.”

Azad Gayibov, 38, a school teacher and father of two, said the fuel price increases will mean careful budget planning for his family. “It does not mean an increase in fuel prices only, but also a deterioration in the entire economy.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)

Fuel shortages continue in Kazakhstan

NOV. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Protests continued across parts of Kazakhstan over petrol shortages. One protest, captured in a photo essay on the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website showed four men pulling a Soviet-era car to a petrol station near Almaty with a donkey cart.

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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan agree energy deal

NOV. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan agreed a deal for Astana to meet most of Bishkek’s electricity deficit, albeit at a price greater than Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev would have wanted to pay.

The deal, finalised during a meeting between Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Mr Atambayev in Astana, means Kyrgyzstan must pay roughly three times more for the imported electricity than Kyrgyz citizens pay for domestically-produced electricity. Importantly, it also shows Kazakhstan’s political clout in Kyrgyzstan is growing.

An estimated deficit of 2b kilowatt hours (kWh) this year, caused by a shortage of water in its reservoirs, public reaction to shutoffs drove Bishkek and the potential to sign the deal.

Mr Atambayev will be relieved to have made the deal to import 1.4b kWh from Kazakhstan but here are still problems. He will have to make up the shortfall from somewhere else, possibly Turkmenistan, and he will have to finance the extra costs.

Currently the government has suggested modest tariff increases beginning Jan. 1. These are bound to irritate people in Kyrgyzstan.

Other agreements reached by Mr Atambayev and Mr Nazarbayev at the meeting are also indicative and suggested that Kazakhstan maintains significant leverage over its weaker neighbour.

Mr Nazarbayev promised that a fleet of Kyrgyzstan-bound fuel wagons, owned by Russian energy giant Rosneft and held by Kazakh customs officials without explanation since April, would be allowed to cross the two countries’ mutual border. He also pledged a $100 million grant to Kyrgyzstan as the country prepares to enter the Eurasian Economic.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)