On 31 October 2018 in Astana NCOC participated in the seminar, conducted by the Joint Working Group on Energy, Ecology and Oil & Gas Industry (EWG) of the Foreign Investors’ Council chaired by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

In implementation of its 2018 Action Plan, the Joint Working Group on Energy, Ecology and Oil & Gas Industry (EWG) of the Foreign Investors’ Council chaired by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan conducted a specialized seminar with lectures by global oil and gas industry experts on topics with application to further improvement of RoK legislation in greenhouse gas policy (GHG).

The seminar “International practices and methods of GHG emissions regulation” was held under the joint chairmanship of O.Agabekov, Head of the Department of Climate Change, RoK Ministry of Energy, and Zh.Baidasheva, Director of Kazakhstan Foreign Investors Council Association.

Invited participants included:

• Relevant experts of the Ministry of Energy Department of Climate Change, Zhasyl Damu, and Caspy Exchange.
• Representatives of industry associations NPP “Atameken,” KAZENERGY, Association of Mining and Metallurgy, etc.
• Relevant experts of company-members of KFICA EWG, including NCOC.

A Welcoming address was provided by S.Nurlibay, RoK Vice-Minister of Energy. There were presentations on “International Carbon Markets” by M.C.Johannes, P.Prashan and E.Kostromova, Shell (London and Singapore); on green financing of energy projects by V.Duijnhouwer and J.Barlow.

The ideas raised in the whitepapers may be helpful to NCOC’s GHG compliance plans in future, and include:

• To allow banking of unused allowances between National Plan periods in the Kazakhstan Emissions Trading System (KazETS).
• To create mechanisms to ensure “floor” and “ceiling” prices in KazETS in order to reduce volatility and improve effectiveness
• To set in regulations criteria that will clearly identify economic activities or products that qualify as “Energy-Intensive and Trade-Exposed” (EITE) and thus subject to carbon leakage, and to provide sufficient allowance to qualified EITE activities or production.

A protocol of the meeting will be agreed and included into the activity report of the EWG to the Interim Session of the Foreign Investment Council, to be held in Astana under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Sagintayev on 29 November, 2018. Co-chairs of the EWG are K.A.Bozumbayev, RoK Minister of Energy, and Cheryl Gomez-Smith, country manager of ExxonMobil Kazakhstan, Inc.