Belarus, Kazakhstan in talks over Kazakh oil delivery to Belarusian refineries

The official reminded that the sides expressed their mutual interest in the matter during the visit of the Belarus government delegation to Kazakhstan in November 2012. Back then a relevant memorandum on cooperation in oil and gas industry matters was signed. Now the Kazakh side is looking for an oil deposit where oil can be prospected and extracted using Belarusian technologies.

"Work in all the avenues of Belarusian-Kazakh cooperation in the oil and gas industry is going on rather intensively. We plan to achieve a concrete result at the end of the year," said the Vice Premier of Belarus. Mikhail Rusyi is also the co-chairman of the Belarusian-Kazakh commission for cooperation, according to BelTA.

Kazakhstan has shown its interest in selling oil to Belarus for a long time, however, the implementation of the plans will depend on how soon the relevant treaties and agreements to enable equal terms for Single Economic Space member states are signed. For now there are only basic agreements, said Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Belarus Mr Ergali Bulegenov in Minsk in December 2012. The legislation for the joint operation of the Single Economic Space's existing network of pipelines is the point.

In 2011 Kazakhstan extracted about 80 million tons of oil and extracted nearly as much in 2012. In the future Kazakhstan plans to extract up to 130 million tons of oil every year.