Monday, April 30, 2012 -
Kazakhstan is not up to schedule in terms of the construction of oil refineries, the country’s oil and gas minister said on Monday.
“We are significantly behind with reconstruction and boosting the capacity of our three refineries,” the Itar-Tass news agency reported Oil and Gas Minister Sauat Mynbayev as saying.
“This, along with the presence of our oil, has caused problems in supplying to the domestic market.”
Building a new refinery by 2020 is critical to Kazakhstan, the minister said.
“We are planning a fourth refinery, which should start construction. All preparations should start in 2018. Why build in 2020? Because if construction is brought to a conclusion in four to five years, the capacity of the three reconstructed refineries would not be enough by 2025 as domestic demand increases.”
Kazakhstan is the top oil producer in Central Asia.