Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.19
By Elena Kosolapova - Trend:
Owners of low-profit oil fields in Kazakhstan are entitled by law to pay lower taxes on mining, the State Revenue Committee of the Ministry of Finance of Kazakhstan told Trend.
The committee said that the Code of Kazakhstan "On taxes and other obligatory payments to the budget" describes the procedure for attribution of a field, group of fields or part of the deposit to the category of low-profit, high-viscosity, watered, marginal and depleted ones. Their list and order of taxation regarding the tax on the extraction of minerals have been already defined, the ministry said.
"In case of unfavorable market conditions, the subsoil user has the right to attribute the fields to the above mentioned categories to obtain a lower mining tax rate on the deposit, group of fields or a part of the deposit," said the committee.
Oil revenues are the main source of income of Kazakhstan. At the current level of oil prices at around $50 per barrel, production at a number of fields in Kazakhstan may become unprofitable because of the high prime cost.
Earlier, the vice minister of energy of Kazakhstan, Uzakbai Karabalin said the average cost of oil in the country is about $50 per barrel.
Earlier, Kazakhstan's energy minister, Vladimir Shkolnik, was quoted as saying that the government will optimize taxes for mining enterprises until the end of the first quarter of 2015.
"Due to the fall in world oil prices all the mining companies in the country took measures in 2015 to reduce costs." said Shkolnik. "However, the financial condition of main mining enterprises is being analyzed together with the government's economic bloc. Measures will be taken until late March to optimize taxation and reducing the current investment costs to maintain the level of production."
Later, the Kazakh national economy minister, Yerbolat Dossayev said that Kazakhstan would reduce the oil export customs duty from $80 to $60 per one metric ton.
Edited by CN
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