Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev considers that the renewal of Iraqi oil supplies to the world market will not influence hydrocarbon exports from Kazakhstan

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev considers that the renewal of Iraqi oil supplies to the world market will not influence hydrocarbon exports from Kazakhstan. "I think that in the near future Middle East oil, including Iraqi, will not have a significant influence on Kazakhstan. If this were the case, then Saudi Arabia, which has enormous oil potential, could have competed with us long ago, but it is still not doing so," the president said at a press briefing in Aksai. Nazarbayev noted that the pace of development of the world economy indicates that in the coming 25 years consumption of hydrocarbons will increase 25%, therefore Kazakhstan will increase supplies to the world market. The president noted that Kazakhstan, in addition to using existing pipelines, is cooperating with China to implement a project to build a pipeline from Kazakhstan to Western China. As reported earlier, the Kazakh president participated in a ceremony to launch the Karachaganak processing complex and the start of oil exports from new production capacities at the Karachaganak field on Friday. Kazakh Energy and Mineral Resource Minister Vladimir Shkolnik, who is on a visit to Washington, also considers that the start of operations at Iraqi oil fields will not influence investment policy towards Kazakhstan in the U.S. and Europe.