Kazakhstan plans constructing oil terminal
By Fatma Babayeva
Energy rich Kazakhstan plans to construct an oil terminal in its Kuryk port in the future, the Kazakh National Transport and Logistics Center told Trend on May 23.
Nevertheless, the center did not provide the timeframe for the construction of the terminal.
Transshipment of oil from the port of Kuryk will be realized by a ferry complex which is currently under construction.
The main destinations of oil transportation through the Kuryk port's ferry terminal are Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia and Latvia, noted the Center.
At the moment, the cargo transportation by ferries from Kazakhstan to the ports of the Caspian littoral states is possible only through the Aktau port.
Kazakhstan plans to increase transit transportation from the
current 18 million
tons of cargo to 33 million
tons in 2020 and 50 million tons in 2030.
Kazakhstan expects to enter the top 10 oil exporters by 2020 through producing 130 million tons of oil per year, Askar Kenzhekhanov, the Deputy Director General of the Information Oil and Gas Center of Kazakhstan's Energy Ministry said recently.
The forecast for oil production of the country in 2016 amounts to 77 million tons of oil.
In 2015, there was a slowdown in oil production of Kazakhstan amid falling global oil prices. It exported 60.9 million tons of oil in the given year.
Export by sea totaled 3.1 million tons, while 0.8 million tons of oil was exported by rail. A significant reduction in export by rail was due to the rising cost of oil transportation.
The Kazakh government plans to compensate the projected decline in oil production in 2016 by resuming the Kashagan field in the future.
The production at the Kashagan field was suspended in October 2013 after a gas leak in one of the main pipelines.
Kazakhstan is working on oil supply chain diversification as well. The country plans to increase production on other major oil fields –Tengiz and Karachaganak.
Kazakhstan is the second largest oil producer in Eurasia after Russia, and the twelfth largest in the world.
It holds 1.8 percent of the world’s total proven oil reserves, and produces 1.9 percent of the world’s total oil output, according to the BP statistical review of world energy 2015.
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Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva
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