Refinery maintenance system can reduce the price of gasoline in Kazakhstan
The work at the oil refineries in Kazakhstan of the automated system for managing the maintenance and repair of equipment (TORO) can lead to cheaper gasoline, KazTAG reports with reference to the Deputy Minister of Energy of Kazakhstan Bolat Akchulakov.
“In general, this will affect the saturation of our market with oil products. Firstly, it will help to avoid fuel shortages in the country. And, secondly, prices today are not regulated. According to the laws of a market economy, in the event of an excess of products, the market can regulate itself, and this will affect prices. For example, compared to last year, you see that gasoline, in principle, has fallen in price in Kazakhstan. At the end of last year, it reached 165-167 tenge per litre, today it is within 150 tenge and a little. These are the effects of these upgrades. The market is saturated,” B. Akchulakov said at a press conference on Wednesday.
He explained that the maintenance system allows not to stop the refineries for repairs every year, but to carry out planned, preventive repairs once every three years. “Regular repairs take up to a month every year. And one month of downtime is about 300-400 thousand tonnes of unprocessed oil. Accordingly, if the refinery does not stand this month, it will process these volumes and deliver products to the market, the vice-minister specified.
According to the Ministry of Energy, the introduction of an automated system for maintenance and repair at "ANPZ", "PNHZ", "PKOP" (Kazmunaygas) began in 2017 and will last until 2019. The economic effect is tentatively estimated at 37 billion tenge, taking into account the costs of about 7.5 billion tenge.
Reported by ABC TV (Kazakhstan).
