NUR-SULTAN

Kazakhstan expects that total revenues to the country’s National Fund will reach up to 3.9 trillion tenge ($9.2 billion) in the next three years, if the oil price stands at $60 per barrel, Economy Minister Aset Irgaliyev said.

The  Central Asian country relies on its rainy-day fund to fill budget gaps, although there are plans to reduce the transfer from the Fund to the state budget to 2.4 trillion tenge in 2024 from 3 trillion tenge in 2022. This year, the Fund is expected to transfer to the state budget 2.7 trillion tenge.

“With a projected price of $60 per barrel, total receipts to the National Fund will amount to 3.4-3.9 trillion tenge in 2022-2024,” Irgaliyev told the parliament.

“At the same time, the use of the National Fund funds for the … state budget is projected to decrease,” he added.

The minister said that revenues of the Fund were projected to rise from 445 billion tenge in 2022 to 1.5 trillion tenge in 2024.

The National Fund’s currency assets are projected to rise to $61.6 billion in 2024 from $55.3 billion in 2022.

The Fund’s assets amounted to 27.6 trillion tenge ($64.4 billion), including the foreign currency portfolio of $58.5 billion as of June 1, 2021.

As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted production as well as demand for oil, OPEC+, a group of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allied producers of which Kazakhstan is a member, cut output by a little more than 7 million bpd to support prices and reduce oversupply. Other former Soviet oil-producing countries, Russia and Azerbaijan, are also OPEC+ members.

In April 2021, members of the group agreed to ease cuts gradually by 350,000 bpd in May, another 350,000 bpd in June and around 450,000 bpd in July.

In July, OPEC+ ministers decided to increase total production from August by 400,000 bpd every month and later by another 400,000 bpd from October. The reductions in previously agreed cuts were introduced amid a rising number of the COVID-19 infections across the world and firm prices on oil markets.

The new deal agreed this month envisages a further production increase by another 400,000 bpd “until the parties agree to lift the restrictions”. The OPEC + quota for Kazakhstan in October will amount to 1.524 million barrels per day and every month production will increase by an average of 16,000 barrels per day.