BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 16
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
Kazakhstan will keep the volume of extraction, processing and export of oil in 2020 at the level of 2019, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy said, Trend reports with reference to Kazakh Khabar 24 channel.
The ministry also noted that importing countries will also remain the same, and for the most part Kazakh oil is imported to European Union countries, Southeast Asia, China, the US.
“Decrease of Kazakh oil export to China and Italy does not affect export of Kazakh oil overall. Decrease of export to China is also not related to coronavirus outbreak. Decrease is due to decrease of extraction in Aktobe and Kyzylorda regions,” the ministry said.
Kazakhstan’s oil extraction plan for 2019 was 89 million tons.
On the morning of March 9, 2020, Brent crude plunged 25 percent dropping to its lowest since February 2016 and recording the biggest one-day percentage declines since Jan. 17, 1991.
Trading volumes in the front-month hit record highs in the previous session after a three-year pact between Saudi Arabia and Russia and other major oil producers to limit supply fell apart on March 6, 2020.
At the end of 2018, OPEC and a number of non-affiliated countries (Kazakhstan being one of them) decided to extend the agreement on reducing oil production, which has been in force since the beginning of 2017. The countries agreed to reduce their production by a total of 1.2 million barrels per day from the level of October 2018.
A decision was passed in Vienna on July 2, 2019, regarding the extension of the agreement on the reduction of oil production by the countries of OPEC and non-members of the cartel until the end of the first quarter of 2020.
Kazakhstan has supported the decision to reduce oil extraction by additional 500,000 barrels a day within the framework of OPEC+ agreement under the decision made during the 7th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting held in Vienna, Austria, on Dec. 6, 2019.
Thus, latest liabilities of Kazakhstan within the agreement were 1.843 million barrels a day compared to 1.86 million barrels a day previously.
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