Minister of Oil and Gas of Kazakhstan Sauat Mynbayev expressed the hope that fuels and lubricants deficit could be avoided in the Republic this year due to the last increase in the limit of prices in a regulated fuels, Novosti-Kazakhstan news agency writes.
The maximum retail prices of petroleum products increased in April: diesel fuel - 95 tenge per liter, AI-80 - 91 tenge per liter, AI-92 - 112 tenge per liter. Previously, the cost of fuel was as follows: gasoline Ai-92/93 - not more than 106 tenge per liter, petrol AI-80 - 86 tenge per liter, diesel fuel - 90 tenge per liter.
"If those price caps, which are set by the Government reflect overall market conditions, there will not be a deficit, and I hope that the price increase in April yields a small but stock return, which would solve the problem of the deficit," Mynbayev said during online conference on the Bnews portal on Thursday.
In this regard, he also hopes that the national company "KazMunaiGas" (KMG) will not have to incur losses this year, buying gasoline from Russian by higher price than the established by the government of Kazakhstan.
"Last year we had low prices on adjustable fuel types. Break with Russia reached 40 percent, and it would be naïve to expect that someone would import gasoline ... and therefore the KMG had to import fuel at a loss" the minister reminded.