Kazakhstan ratifies amendments to oil, petroleum product supply agreement with Russia

ASTANA. Dec 20 (Interfax) - President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has signed a bill into law ratifying a protocol that amends the December 9, 2010 agreement between Kazakhstan and Russia on trade and economic cooperation in supplying oil and petroleum products to Kazakhstan.

The text of the document was published in official Kazakh media outlets on Wednesday.

By amending Article 3 of the agreement, the protocol ends the use in Russia of temporary periodic customs declarations for petroleum products exported from Russia to Kazakhstan.

Under this article, oil and petroleum products exported from Russia to Kazakhstan from January 1, 2014, were subject to a customs declaration procedure in Russia similar to the procedure applied to products exported outside the Customs Union's territory, Kazakh Energy Ministry Almasadam Satkaliyev said.

"In 2019, the Russian side came up with a proposal to amend Article 3 of the bilateral agreement. The idea was to continue statistical accounts in Russia through the customs declaration procedure but stop using temporary periodic customs declarations for the export of petroleum products to Kazakhstan, except for pipeline exports of oil and petroleum products in 2022-2024," Satkaliyev said.

Ending temporary declarations for Russian petroleum product exports to Kazakhstan will benefit Kazakh entrepreneurs, enabling them to choose sellers and terms for deliveries at favorable prices, the minister said.