The feasibility of installation of CM at petrol stations was tested in practice

On 6^th of September, an offsite meeting was held at the oil depot and petrol stations in Astana to discuss problematic issues related to the implementation of the program for equipping the production, storage and sale of petroleum products in Kazakhstan with monitoring meters.

Member of the Presidium, Chairman of the Committee for Oil and Gas Industry of RK "Atameken" Daniyar Abulgazin, Deputy Chairman of the Board of NCE RK "Atameken" Eldos Ramazanov, Head of the Office of Excise Administration of the Tax Control Department of the State Revenue Committee of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan Damir Nurgaliev, Executive Director of the Association "KAZENERGY" "Rustem Kabzhanov and the chairman of the Fuel Association Bolat Auetaev participated in it.

The main issue of the visiting meeting was the feasibility of installation of CM at petrol stations and oil depots, the participants in practice checked the operation of these devices. The first object was the tank farm of LLP "Aurika".

Daniyar Abulgazin asked the general director of the oil depot Dmitry Kuzovenko to describe how the oil product runs from the depot, explain the shortcomings and the meaning of the new system.

"The oil product comes to the railroad train, from there it goes directly to the reservoirs, further from them there is a spill of road tankers. Accounting is done by weight. The introduction of monitoring devices is a good idea, but this system will not work properly. There will be discrepancies at three points: upon unloading there will be one digit, another figure when it comes from the plant and even when leaving the tanks in tanks there will be a problem, since the tanks have pantones, and also "claps" (local deformation of the surface of the tank structures), which will lead to an incorrect indication of the level gauges. CM do not take into account, and how this issue will be resolved is also unclear", - Kuzovenko explained.

 Deputy General Director of LLP “Oil LTD KZ” (network of Nomad Oil stations) Yuliya Zernakov talked about feasibility of installation of CM both from technical and financial point of view, in practice demonstrating that the former method does not fail and is financially acceptable for small petrol station.

"It is worth highlighting the most important thing, that because of these innovations, there will be an additional financial burden per liter, that is, gasoline prices will rise", - Yuliya Zhernakova noted.

"If metropolitan petrol stations and oil depots have such problems I think it will be even more difficult to adopt to this system for regional suppliers", - Daniyar Abulgazin stressed.

Business is also concerned about the financial side of this issue. The fact is that the high costs of introducing CM will lead to significant losses, as well as the closure of a number of oil depots and small networks of petrol stations.

"Small and medium-sized businesses already have a lot of worries to burden them with these regulations. The installation of these systems can entail such consequences as the closure of small gas stations, they will not be able to draw out such amounts", - the deputy chairman of Atameken believes.

According to ALE "Kazakhstani Fuel Association for the equipping of one tank farm (for example, 26 vertical and 10 horizontal tanks) it will be required not less than 120 million tenge, for one filling station, on average, 5 million tenge. At the same time the costs do not take into account the work and time associated with redesigning objects and construction work. In addition, after the implementation of the data transmission system, business entities, in addition to reimbursing the costs of installing CM, will have to divert considerable funds for operating expenses for servicing the data transmission system (JSC "National Information Technologies"), which can amount to a considerable amount.

"Today, there is no information about the ultimate goal pursued by the fiscal authorities of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the implementation of the installation of these instruments, in addition to establishing full control over the turnover of petroleum products in Kazakhstan. If there are unscrupulous suppliers, they need to be caught and punished, but do not burden the business with additional financial costs, especially in the regions of Kazakhstan. CM will not stop those who have problems with the law. If some businessmen steal, this does not mean that everything is stolen, we have a lot of those who work according to the law and norms", - Abulgazin stressed.

"Atameken" in this matter supports honest business and at the moment, honest businessmen provide full information of the movement of petroleum products. To combat "shadow", state agencies should have other mechanisms that will not apply to the entire business community, such as the installation of CM", - Eldos Ramazanov added.

The participants also noted that since 1^st of January 2018, taking into account the described problems, there may be problems with the supply of petroleum products, so this issue must be solved, that is, at best, to refuse from the installation of these CMs.

It was decided that on 7^th of September, representatives of NCE RK "Atameken", the association and the State Revenue Committee will discuss these problematic issues with the Minister of Finance of Kazakhstan, Bakhyt Sultanov.