The oil industry of Kazakhstan will not fully recover until 2023. By this time, the country will be producing an additional 12 million tonnes of oil per year, experts say. According to Olzhas Baidildinov, the increase in production is observed mainly in large projects. He considers the current market prices to be too high. The expert believes that this is largely an achievement of the OPEC+ countries, which are now taking advantage of the situation and actively extracting oil. So are non-cartel manufacturers.
“Kazakhstan has been increasing its oil production since spring and summer. Thanks to the efforts of the government and the relevant ministry, Kazakhstan has defended its position, and now we, together with Russia, are increasing production, and OPEC+ have agreed to this. Kazakhstan is ready not only to accept investments, but also to protect them on the world stage, which is a very positive factor,” said Olzhas Baidildinov, oil and gas industry expert.
In addition, Baidildinov says that the market may collapse at any moment. In his opinion, with current world demand, the comfort price should still be at around US$60 per barrel.
“At the same time, we cannot say that we are making fantastic profits. It’s just not true. The thing is that we’re now producing less oil than we did in the past two years. More precisely, it’s a little bit more than in 2020, but less than in 2019. That is why it is not entirely correct to say that our oil industry has recovered and is prepared for the same revenues and taxes as in the past. We are now producing oil by about five or six percent less than in 2019,” said Olzhas Baidildinov, oil and gas industry expert.
Translation by Assem Zhanmukhanova
Editing by Galiya Khassenkhanova
