Petrol sold in Kazakhstan does not always comply with claimed quality: Industry Ministry

Commission for Technical Regulation and Metrology of Kazakhstan Ministry of Industry and New Technologies stated big number of detected violations in fuel retail sales in 2011, Interfax-Kazakhstan reports. “328 fuel-selling companies were checked in 2011 and violations were discovered in 65.5 percent of them. As a results, sales of 367 lots of goods worth over $2.8 million were prohibited and fines of $51 thousand were levied,” Head of Monitoring and Control Department of the Commission for Technical Regulation and Metrolody Aigul Kassymova said at the press-conference on February 16 in Astana. According to her, the violations were mainly discovered in Pavlodar, Kostanai, East Kazakhstan oblasts, Almaty and Astana. Most of them were related to incompliance of fuel quality with the technical rules. “For example, the control tests of fuel samples from Sibneft fuel station in Almaty made by accredited laboratory showed that octane number of sold AI-92 petrol actually made 82.4 percent. This fuel was prohibited from sale,” Kassymova said adding that similar violations were discovered in AI-80 petrol and diesel fuel. Besides, the commission discovered a large batch of Poland-made Lotus car oils sold without compliance certificates.