Kazakh PM holds Economic Demonopolization Commission meeting
The issues of taking antimonopoly measures in the areas of oil production and transportation, health care and operation of railway infrastructure were discussed at the Economic Demonopolization Commission headed by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov, El.kz cites primeminister.kz.
Thus, the activity of a private company owning an oil pipeline, through which raw materials from one of the fields are sent to the bitumen plant for processing, was considered. There are no similar pipelines on this route, which makes it impossible to transport oil by an alternative route.
Taking advantage of its monopoly position, the company set a tariff for services 30 times higher than the tariffs used for oil transportation for similar distances by other market participants.
As a result of the discussion, authorized government agencies are instructed to analyze the validity of the established prices and take the necessary measures through the Committee for Regulation of Natural Monopolies Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The meeting also considered the issue of returning a number of services provided to the Atyrau Refinery and Petrochemical Plant under outsourcing to the competence of the plants themselves. In particular, it was noted that the first phase of transferring the functions of maintenance of automatics and pipelines, water supply and plumbing services to the enterprise was completed at Petrochemical Plant. At present, similar work is being done on construction and installation services, maintenance of electrical equipment, power grids and ventilation, shipper services, etc. It should be completed by the end of the current year.
Along with this, the participants discussed the issues of transfer of the enterprise, working in the field of equipping medical organizations with equipment and machinery, from trust management to the Ministry of Healthcare, as well as the operation of railway access roads, previously returned to the state ownership.