At a meeting with Azerbaijan’s Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov, his counterpart from Kyrgyzstan, Taalaibek Ibrayev, proposed signing a long-term contract to supply Azeri crude oil to Kyrgyzstan.
The bilateral meeting took place on September 16 in Bishkek, on the sidelines of the 4th meeting of energy ministers of the Organization of Turkic States (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan). Representatives of Turkmenistan and Hungary attended as observers.
The Azeri Energy Minister expressed its readiness for cooperation, and proposed establishing a special working group to organize oil supplies.
Ibrayev also proposed that Azerbaijan participate in hydropower and renewable energy projects in Kyrgyzstan, and consider preferential financing of $2 million from the Azerbaijan-Kyrgyzstan Development Fund for the purchase and installation of charging devices for electric vehicles in Kyrgyzstan.
Today, Kyrgyzstan’s local capacity for refining crude oil and producing motor fuel covers about 5% of domestic demand, with the rest imported from Russia.
During Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov’s visit to oil-rich Azerbaijan earlier this year, negotiations were held with the Azeri state oil company, SOCAR, on Azerbaijani oil supplies to Kyrgyzstan’s Junda refinery.
Energy Minister Ibrayev commented that the Junda oil refinery requires more than 1 million tons of crude oil annually for refining.
On August 30, the refinery reopened in the town of Kara-Balta, about 100 kilometers west of Bishkek.
Late in March, the refinery completed a significant overhaul and plans to reach its total annual capacity of processing 800,000 tons of crude oil by the end of this year.
