Kazakhstan to reduce oil production by 1.5 pct

By Azernews

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Kazakhstan is a landlocked country and is far from international oil markets.

Lack of access to the open ocean makes the country depend on the trunk oil pipelines to transport its oil to world markets. Kazakhstan is also a transit country for the export of oil to China.

Vice-Minister of National Economy Madi Takiyev talked on the forecast of the main macro indicators for 2019 and budget parameters for 2019–2021, Kapital.kz reports.

He said that oil production in comparison with 2018 will decrease by 1.4 million tons, or 1.5 percent, adding that this leads to the formation of lower growth rates in the mining industry.

"At the same time, higher growth is expected in the services sector. The basis for the growth of the service sector is an increase in domestic demand,” said Madi Takiyev at a presentation of government bills with amendments to the Law “On the republican budget for 2019-2021” on March 14.

As he predicted, the projected oil price is $ 55 per barrel, and the tenge exchange rate will be 370 tenges per dollar.

“The growth of industry will be 1.6 percent. At the same time, the manufacturing industry will grow more than the mining industry. Taking into account the above-mentioned factors of development, real GDP growth is estimated at 3.8 percent for 2019,” concluded Takiyev.

Kazakhstan exports mainly light crude CPC Blend. which is appreciated for its high yield of gasoline and light distillates.

Kazakhstan is among the top 15 countries in the world for proven oil reserves, with three percent of the world's reserves of ‘black gold’.

Oil and gas bearing areas occupy 62 percent of the country's area and have 172 oil fields, of which more than 80 are under development. More than 90 percent of the oil reserves are concentrated in the 15 largest fields.

Tengiz, Karachaganak and Kashagan are the largest oil fields in Kazakhstan. Three oil giants will be able to bring Kazakhstan's oil production to a new level in the coming years even if new oil fields are not discovered.

The Atyrau region has the most prospected oil reserves, on the territory of which more than 75 fields with reserves of industrial categories of 930 million tons are discovered. The largest field in the region is Tengiz (the initial recoverable reserves are 781.1 million tons.)

KazTransOil is the largest oil pipeline company of Kazakhstan, providing services for the transportation of oil to the domestic market and for export.