Coronavirus Leads to Declining Demand for Oil Products in Kazakhstan

JSC NC “KazmunayGas” (hereinafter KMG) hereby informs that implementation of a lockdown in large Kazakh cities and declining demand for oil products are making refineries operate at minimum balanced capacities.  Crude oil in Kazakhstan is refined at four enterprises: Atyrau Refinery, Pavlodar Petrochemical Plant, PetroKazakhstan Oil Products (Shymkent Refinery), and CASPI BITUM bitumen plant.

Analysis of requests received by refineries from crude oil suppliers shows a significant decline in the demand for core oil products in April 2020: 40% for motor gasoline and diesel fuel, and 70% for jet fuel. Crude oil refining and production output at Atyrau, Pavlodar and Shymkent Refineries have been reduced to the minimum level in order to avoid overstock.

 Refinery operations are continuing.

Reinforced Security Measures

Crisis management headquarters have been operating in refineries since 15 March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They coordinate their activities with the national company’s central HQ on a daily basis. 

Unprecedented preventive measures have been taken - more stringent sanitary, disinfectant, and access control procedures introduced; up to 70% of the administrative personnel working remotely; movement of refinery employees between business units limited; health monitoring performed daily; continuous disinfection of premises, vehicles and adjoining territories carried out.

KMG supplies the refineries with at least a two-month stock of water, food, essential commodities, medicines, and personal protection equipment.  The employees are provided with such personal protection equipment as medical face masks, nitril gloves, and bactericides.

Modernization Results

It is worth reminding that modernization of three refineries (Atyrau, Pavlodar and Shymkent) allowed for covering all the internal market needs for oil products. The refining potential of the refineries was increased to 17.5 million tons a year, and the oil conversion ratio raised to 90%. Today, the Kazakh people have enough gasolines of K4 and K5 emission class (Euro-4 and Euro-5, respectively). In 2019, excess gasoline was exported to foreign and CIS states.

The crude hydrocarbons processing in Kazakhstan (including KMG) in 2019 amounted to 13,822,000 tons - a 3% rise against 2018.

The refinery run in 2019, including KMG’s operating results, made up 12,513,000 tons, which is 361,000 tons (3%) more than in 2018.