Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 22
By Ali Mustafayev – Trend:
Sanctions imposed by the US against Iran in August made the oil trade with regional neighbors relevant again for the Islamic Republic. Kazakhstan, as one of Iran’s strategically significant neighbors, is interested in increasing the oil trade with Iran.
“Kazakhstan currently faces lack of upstream manufacturing products and for this reason the country has no other option than selling crude oil and even purchasing fuel for aircraft from abroad. Oil refineries of the country are in a permanent process of modernization, and in this case, Iranian processed oil products are of high importance for Kazakhstan,” political analyst Eduard Poletayev told Trend.
He added that although both Iran and Kazakhstan are oil suppliers, they are not competitors to each other, since they aim at different markets. That is why the two oil producers, working in the Caspian Sea and in the Persian Gulf, may mutually benefit each other.
“The only complication currently is that there is no oil pipeline connecting Iran and Kazakhstan, which makes the oil supplies more complicated than they would be, but it can be compensated to some extent by the oil tankers which may easily function through the Caspian Sea,” added the expert.
Touching upon the common points of interest between the two countries, Poletayev noted that Iran has a highly developed chemical sector, which may also be interesting for the Kazakh market.
Discussions on the Kazakh-Iranian cooperation remain on the agenda since a meeting was held between the presidents of the two countries amid the First Science and Technology Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The two presidents stressed the strong will of their countries to widen the existing ties in various spheres, including economy, transportation and energy.