President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, re-elected for another five-year term last April, has set the task to fully meet the internal market’s demand for domestic oil products as like gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and gas by 2018, according to the press service of the president.

“It's important to liberalize oil and gas market, return commercial functions to the refineries. We have to set up a plan to operate internal market without import,” the president noted.

Nazarbayev also said that by 2021, oil production volumes in Kazakhstan will reach 92 million tons per year [79.5 million tons in 2015].

Kazakhstan has three major oil refineries located in Atyrau, Shymkent, and Pavlodar. All the three plants are being modernized, which will provide the domestic market of the country with own fuel and lubricants.

Gasoline production in 2015 in Kazakhstan amounted to 2.9 million tons, which is 4.9 percent less than in 2014. Kazakhstan annually imports about 1.1 million tons of gasoline mainly from Russia.

Photo: sxodim.kz