The Kazakh authorities suspected the country’s biggest sellers of liquefied gas, namely, KazMunayGas, Kazgermunai, CNPC-Aktobemunaigas and Kazakhoil, of price fixing, Khabar 24 TV channel said, Trend reports with reference to TASS.

“The price fixing and abuse of dominant position in the market have been revealed,” the message said.

According to the TV channel, if the companies are proven guilty, they will be fined.

“These are such companies as KazMunayGas Joint Stock Company, Kazgermunai Joint Stock Company, CNPC-Aktobemunaigaz Company, Kazakhoil Company,” the message said.

“The prices increased during 2021,” a representative of the Kazakh Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition told the TV channel. “If initially, this price was 67,000 tenge ($153.86) per ton, then more than 100,000 tenge ($229.64) per ton by the end of the year.”

The representative added that the agency will present preliminary data on this case within 20 days to the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

Kazakhstan’s government announced late Jan. 4 that it was restoring some price caps on liquefied petroleum gas after the rare protests reached Almaty following a sharp rise in the price of the fuel at the start of the year.

Many Kazakhs have converted their cars to run on LPG, which is far cheaper than gasoline as a vehicle fuel in Kazakhstan because of price caps. But the government argued that the low price was unsustainable and lifted the caps on Jan. 1.

After the price of the fuel spiked, big demonstrations erupted on Jan. 2 in certain parts of the country. Public protests are illegal in the country unless their organizers file a notice in advance. Following the development of the situation, the government declared a state of emergency all over the country.

Source: Trend News Agency