BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18
Trend:
The liquefied petroleum gas will be sold at the commodity exchanges and will be under constant control in Kazakhstan, Chairman of the Agency for Protection and Promotion of Competition of the Republic of Kazakhstan Serik Zhumangarin said, Trend reports referring to the Kazakh government.
Zhumangarin added that 12 investigative procedures are being carried out in the diesel fuel market against retailers, including four big retailers, namely, Helios LLP, Sinooil LLP, Gazprom Neft-Kazakhstan LLP, Petro Retail LLP filling stations.
“The agency monitors marginal prices for liquefied petroleum gas daily,” Zhumangarin said. “In case of great price fluctuations and unfavorable trends in the economy, the agency expresses readiness to establish state price regulation in certain commodity markets as a temporary measure.”
“The Ministry of Energy reached an agreement with gas producers to compensate gas retailers for the difference between the old and new wholesale prices,” the chairman added.
“Jointly with the General Prosecutor's Office, investigative procedures were launched against six wholesale distributors of liquefied petroleum gas, namely, JSC KazMunayGas, LLP Petrosun, JSC CNPC-Aktobemunaigas, JV Kazgermunai LLP, KazakhOil Aktobe LLP and KazGPZ LLP due to the abuse of a dominant position in terms of setting monopoly high prices and 180 retailers selling liquefied petroleum gas,” the chairman added.
The chairman also said that the preliminary results of the investigation showed that the main reason for the rise in prices was the imperfection of the pricing mechanism on the e-trading platform.