ASTANA, December 15. /TASS/. Oil transit from Russia to China through Kazakhstan is not paid for in dollars and does not require US approval due to Washington's sanctions against Russian companies, Kazakh Energy Minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov said, adding that Astana "has comfort" with such transactions.
"In the case you are describing, there are no American companies present there, and payments are not made in American currency, so such exemptions are not required. However, we have comfort with these operations, that is, at the moment we are carrying out activities in accordance with the intergovernmental agreement concluded between the Russian Federation, the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of Kazakhstan," he told a press conference.
Regarding large companies in the republic where Russian participants subject to sanctions are present, in Astana, "all of those projects received so-called exemptions from sanctions since American companies are present there, and the American financial system is involved, meaning all payments are made in dollars," Akkenzhenov noted.
On December 3, an article was published on the RTVI TV channel's website, claiming that Kazakhstan was prepared to stop the transit of Russian oil, fearing sanctions from the United States. According to the article, the decision to close the transit should have been made after clarification was received from the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which, according to the TV channel, Astana had contacted.