Heat supply to remain uninterrupted throughout winter, say Kazakh ministers

ASTANA – Kazakh Minister of Energy Kanat Bozumbayev and the then Minister for Investments and Development Zhenis Kassymbek reported on the country’s heat supply in the autumn-winter period at a Dec. 25 government meeting.

Photo credit: primeminister.kz.

Generally, consumers have been fully provided with electrical and thermal energy. The maximum electrical load of 14,740 megawatts was reached Dec. 24, a record figure in recent years.

Power plant repair is nearly complete, meaning that provision of heat will continue uninterrupted. Eight power units, 44 turbines, 52 boilers, 500 boiler houses and 28,300 kilometres of power lines were repaired.

“Four million tonnes of coal and 112,000 tonnes of fuel oil were accumulated at the power plant fuel depots, which corresponds to our standards,” added Bozumbayev. “At the boiler houses in the centralised heat supply zone, the reserve is 978,800 tonnes of coal and 115,200 tonnes of fuel oil.”

The autumn-winter schedule for assigning 312,000 tonnes of fuel oil to regions’ social facilities was also approved. In October-November, an approved schedule was complete 86 percent.

Next, Kassymbek reported on monitoring technological violations in networks of sanitation and heat and water supply.

“Since the start of the heating season, 24 technological violations have been registered on communal life support systems, which is two times less compared to the same period last year. Akimats (regional administrations) noted that technological violations were eliminated within a short period of time,” he said.

In addition, the country’s coal mining companies produced 109.2 million tonnes of coal in 2018, and the expected volume of coal production by the year’s end is approximately 112 million tonnes. They also transported 46.8 million tonnes by rail in May-December and shipped 56.4 million tonnes, of which 12.4 million tonnes went to households and 27.7 million tonnes were exports. Coal reserve availability is at 93.2 percent, and all regions are ahead of the annual coal supply schedule.

“Over the past four weeks, in all regions of the country, the coal price for households has decreased by an average of 15-20 percent due to the memorandums signed between akimats and coal distributors,” the minister said.

Kazakh Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev noted that the current heating period have so far generally passed without serious technological violations and instructed akims to keep these violations under tight control. Local executive bodies were further tasked with attracting additional technical resources, providing heat and power supply facilities with the necessary volume of fuel and materials and organising round-the-clock response teams for the relevant organisations.


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