Oil price rises due to unrest Kazakhstan | Financial

The uranium market appears to be more resilient to the problems, even though Kazakhstan is the world’s second largest producer of uranium.

Over the course of the past week, oil prices rose about 5% and on Friday the price of Brent oil broke through the mark of $83 a barrel. According to experts, this reached the highest price level since the price drop at the end of November due to fears of the omikron variant of the corona virus.

Protests in Kazakhstan erupted after the price of fuel doubled early this year. President Kassym-Jomart Tokaev has reversed that, but the demonstrations continued and increasingly turned against the established political order. Thousands of people took to the streets in the largest city of Almaty to protest. The police then shot and killed dozens of protesters. Several buildings caught fire. Shops were also looted. The internet was shut down across the country and banks closed as a precaution.

Kazakhstan is known as one of the largest oil producers in Central Asia. The country was good for pumping an average of 1.8 million barrels of oil per day in 2020. According to several market experts, the production of oil in the country has been ‘affected’ by the unrest, although production in the country’s largest fields continued as usual.

In addition to oil and uranium, Kazakhstan is also rich in manganese, iron, chromium and coal. The country’s uranium mines are located in remote areas to the south. The protests have barely touched its extraction. Most of Kazakh uranium is shipped to China. The unrest may have caused some logistical problems, because the main trade routes run through the Almaty region.

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