Kazakhstan, Astana, Oct.19 / Trend, A. Maratov /
The construction of three mini oil refineries will begin in the south Kazakhstan region of Zhambyl in 2012, a source for the Kazakh Oil and Gas Ministry told Trend on Wednesday. Building will take place in the Bayzak, Shu and Merke districts.
In early 2011, the first mini oil refinery worth three billion tenge ($ 1 - 147.7 tenge) was launched in the region implemented by the LLP Amangeldy Gas Processing Plant.
Plant processing capacity is more than 500 tons of raw material per day which is equivalent to an output of 80 to100 tons of gasoline, 60 tons of kerosene, 120 tons of diesel fuel and 270 tons of fuel oil. At the same time the plant works on local raw material from the Amangeldy gas condensate field or the Kumkol field next to Kyzylorda region.
According to the Kazakh ministry source, an area has been already allocated for the construction of two new mini oil refineries and this means the volume of finished products will hit one million from 500,000 tons per year. The Russian-Kazakh joint venture will deal with the construction in the Shu district.
Kazakhstan imports about 30 per cent of high-octane gasoline from neighboring Russia as the three existing oil refineries do not cover its domestic market's needs in high-octane gasoline.
Recently the Kazakh Oil and Gas minister, Sauat Mynbayev, said that due to demand he hoped to build a fourth oil refinery in 2019.
According to official statistics, the country currently has 32 mini oil refineries, but most of them lost their licenses because of poor quality products. However, the total production of mini oil refineries in Kazakhstan is about 28,000 tons of motor and 365,000 tons of diesel fuel per year. And that is less than one per cent and about eight per cent, respectively, of total production.