Kazakhstan reports on oil export volumes and policy

Kazakhstan's Economic Studies Institute said that the country had exported approximately 20.81 mm tons of crude oil last year.
Some 5.6 mm tons of the total went to CIS member states, while 15.21 mm tons went to non-CIS customers, the institute said.
Bermuda was the biggest foreign (non-CIS) buyer of Kazakhstani oil, taking 6.4 mm tons at a contract price of $ 109.2 per ton. The Virgin Islands came next, buying 2.4 mm tons at a contract price of $ 102.1 per ton, followed by Switzerland with 2.1 mm tons at $ 78.9 per ton and Poland with 980,000 tons at a contract price of $ 68.5 per ton.
Next came Cyprus with 800,000 tons at $ 30.5 per ton, then Lithuania with 490,000 tons at $ 100.6 per ton, China with 420,000 tons at $ 73.6 per ton, Ireland with 410,000 tons at $ 97.4 per ton, Italy with 410,000 tons at $ 57.6 per ton and Panama with 130,000 tons at $ 60 per ton. The average contract price for the 5.6 mm tons of oil exported to CIS customers was $ 47.8 per ton.

Recently, Kazakhstan'sPresident Nursultan Nazarbayev complained about last year's export trends. About half of all exports went to offshore zone, he said, compared to just 2-3 % in 1998. This has created a situation in which oil companies pay less tax and contract prices stay below world levels, Nazarbayev said.
Kazakhstani state media last week charged two foreign-controlled companies -- Hurricane Kumkol Munai and TengizChevrol (TCO) -- with serious violations of tax laws. Aktobemunaigaz, a regional oil producer controlled by the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), was also named as a tax dodger. Nazarbayev told members of his cabinet that a system would have to be set up to monitor these and all other oil companies' exports and payments in order to crack down on tax evasion.
The president also declared that the situation had arisen because world oil prices were so high that producers preferred exports to domestic sales. (Kazakhstan still maintains domestic oil and fuel prices at below-world levels.) Rather than changing its pricing policy, the Kazakhstani government has moved to ease fuel shortages by limiting oil export quotas to 22 mm tons this year, prompting complaints from some foreign investors.