MOSCOW (MRC) -- Kazakhstan has banned the export of oil products by car for a period of six months, reported S&P Global with reference to a document on the energy ministry website.
Last month Kazakhstan's energy minister Kanat Bozumbaev warned against exports to nearby countries of cheaper gasoline and diesel and said prices in Kazakhstan could be raised to the level of Russian prices, according to media reports published on the energy ministry website.
Kazakhstan used to rely on imports of duty-free gasoline from Russia to cover domestic demand, but following the modernization of Kazakhstan's three refineries, it announced earlier this year that it could export up to 600,000 mt/year of gasoline to nearby countries in Central Asia.
Separately, Kazakhstan will reduce the share of imported jet fuel to 4% in 2019 from 60% in 2018, following refinery upgrades, according to the energy ministry's website.
The country's jet fuel output in 2019 is forecast at 694,000 mt, or more than 60% higher year on year, and could potentially rise to 850,000 mt/year.
As MRC wrote previously, in January 2016, South Korea's LG Chem said it had decided to drop a plan to jointly build a USD4.2-billion petrochemical complex in Kazakhstan, citing a prolonged slump in oil prices and a sharp increase in facility investments. In 2011, the chemical company said it would construct the complex near the western Kazakh city of Atyrau as part of a 50-50 joint venture with two Kazakh companies. The plan involved building ethylene and polyethylene (PE) plants with annual capacities of 840,000 tonnes and 800,000 tonnes, respectively. The project was announced in 2013.
Ethylene is a feedstock for producing PE.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,589,580 tonnes in the first nine months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased.
MRC