Kazakhstan, Astana, Feb. 21 / Trend A.Maratov /
Ukraine invites Kazakhstan to participate in the modernization of any of its refineries, Ukrainian Ambassador to Kazakhstan Oleg Demin told Trend.
"Kazakhstan could enter the markets of the EU countries, not only through Romania, where it bought assets of Rompetrol, but also through the arrival to the Ukrainian market. In particular, through the exploitation of one of our refineries or building a joint refinery," Demin said.
He said it also could be another step in promoting Kazak products to Europe.
"This is especially topical, if we consider what amounts of oil Kazakhstan plans to produce," Demin said.
Kazakhstan has set a goal to enter the top ten largest oil producers in the world in the coming years and bring the volume of production to 100 million tons per year.
Demin said possibilities of six refineries existing today in Ukraine are high.
"Existing capacity could threefold cover domestic needs of Ukraine itself without imports and even export," Demin said.
However, today the Ukrainian refineries are experiencing problems with loading of raw materials and work only a third of its design capacity.
"We have a task of modernizing our refineries. In any case, the funds will be sought for these purposes, as refining capacity is very important, especially because we have plans for processing of Kazakh oil. We have such an experience at one of the refineries, but it, unfortunately, has not received its development, but we do not retreat from our proposals," Demin said.
Ukraine also offered Russia and Belarus to enter into projects to upgrade existing refineries, he added.
10 years ago, Kazakhstan has had the experience of buying shares in the Kherson oil refinery in Ukraine to enter the European market.
"It is difficult now to talk about why then the alliance on the issue failed. Obviously, there were private interests that led to what now is a different owner and refineries running below capacity. And we are angry, we must draw conclusions that the partners who participated in the project, would be responsible for ensuring that the plant was working on the result," he said.
