Baku, Azerbaijan, March 28
By Fakhri Vakilov – Trend:
The production of motor gasoline in Uzbekistan in February 2019 increased by 12.5 percent compared with the previous month and amounted to 80,000 tons, Trend reports with reference to Nuz.uz.
In January-February of this year, the production of gasoline in Uzbekistan decreased by 26.3 percent compared to the same period last year and amounted to 151,600 tons.
The production of motor gasoline in Uzbekistan increased in 2018 by 3.7 percent compared with the previous year and amounted to 1.146 million tons.
Currently, there are three oil refineries in Uzbekistan - Bukhara, Fergana and Altyarik, with a total capacity of 11.12 million tons. However, the capacities of enterprises are only 60–70 percent loaded.
Due to the annual decline in oil production, Uzbekistan imports motor fuel from Kazakhstan, to prevent a shortage of it, and from November 2017 it began to purchase oil from Russia too. So for the last two months of 2018, 70,000 tons of oil was imported from Russia. However, in April last year, purchases of Russian oil stopped and only 36,000 tons were imported in the first quarter of last year.
On the contrary, Kazakhstan increased oil exports to Uzbekistan in 2018 in physical terms by 38 percent to 228,670 tons, in monetary terms by 93.7 percent to $136.87 million.
In November 2017, the Ministry of Finance allocated Uznefteprodukt JSC and oil refineries an interest-free loan of 2 trillion soums to import hydrocarbon raw materials and finished petroleum products to cover the gasoline shortage.
Until 2020, imported fuel is exempt from customs duties, and the refinery is exempted from income tax.
Earlier it was reported that in Uzbekistan the prices for AI-80 motor gasoline were increased from 3,800 to 4,000 soums per liter, Ai-91 from 4,400 to 4,500 soums per liter, diesel fuel from 4,600 to 4,800 soums per liter, diesel fuel ECO from 4,600 to 4,900 soums per liter.
($1- 8394 soums on March 28)
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