Astana, Kazakhstan, Feb.14
By Daniyar Mukhtarov- Trend:
The Kazakh government is working on the approval of wholesale gas prices, the chairman of the Kazakh Agency for Regulation of Natural Monopolies, Murat Ospanov said at a briefing in Astana on Feb.13.
"At present time, the Ministry of Oil and Gas is working on the approval of wholesale price of gas, which may affect the tariffs for end consumers of Almaty, Almaty, Mangistau regions," he said. " If necessary, differentiated tariffs for gas on consumer groups will be introduced, and thus minimize the impact on the public."
At the same time, exchanges rate of dollar to tenge will affect the tariffs of gas supply only in import-dependent regions such as Kostanayskaya, South Kazakhstan,West Kazakhstan, Jambul, Almaty and the Almaty region.
"The problem is in the structure of the final price. The cost of gas at the border is 85 dollars per thousand cubic meters," Ospanov said.
The National Bank of Kazakhstan decided to abandon the maintenance of the exchange rate of the national currency - tenge - at the same level, to reduce the volume of exchange interventions and reduce interference in the formation of the exchange rate of tenge on Feb. 11.
"National Bank assumes that the new exchange rate will be at about 185 tenge to dollar," the statement of the National Bank says.
The official exchange rate is 155.5/$1 on Feb. 14.