Gulbanu Abenova
ALMATY, March 18
(THE GLOBE)
�It is possible that petrol manufactured in semi-industrial conditions may be sold at some filling stations. Today it is supposed to be a highly-profitable business�, one of the heads of the oil-processing plant said in Almaty.
Most of the private filling stations have a wide range of higher octane gasoline, while the oil-processing plants do not manufacture such a large volume. The additional profit reaped by private companies dealing with gasoline additives is approximately USD 200 to 300 million.
The higher octane gasoline is substituted by lower quality gasoline which is enriched by different additives. Such additives are added not only to Russian petrol, but to local as well.
During the Soviet period it was forbidden to use the products of the Atyrau oil-processing plant. The products are not the ecologically friendly. However the problem now exists. Atyrau gasoline is being sold in Almaty and our health is being destroyed.
The heads of the oil-processing plants consider the additives used at the plants to be ecologically sound. The compression technology of the additives complies with the standards imposed. However, many filling stations produce a substitute, unstable gasoline which decomposes in a short period of time.
Being wholesale sellers, the oil-processing plants cannot guarantee quality of their products. We can fight these additives only economically, i.e. prevent the filling stations from gaining profit from this business.
March 18
A ministry official said Kazakhstan would pay a semi-annual, inflation adjusted coupon on the bill and that the fixed rate of the coupon would be announced the day before an auction.
A ministry source said the new securities were designed to protect investors such as domestic pension funds from inflation, rather than foreign exchange risk. Bankers say depreciation of the tenge currency could quicken given rouble devaluation in major trade partner Russia.
Ex-Soviet Kazakhstan launched a major pension reform at the beginning of 1998. Kazakh citizens are required to pay 15 percent of their salary into the state pension fund, while a further 10 percent may be invested in private funds.
The funds themselves have a limited spectrum of investment, given the moribund state of the stock market. Kazakhstan also has not issued one-year bills for several months, because investors considered them too risky, given the meagre returns.
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