Kazakhstan, Central Asia's largest oil producer, has agreed to resume using Ukraine as a transit nation for its oil supplies to Europe and will increase transit volumes, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich said. "We have agreed we will increase transit of oil through Ukraine to about 8 million tonnes," he told journalists after talks with Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Kazakhstan stopped shipping oil through Ukraine in January this year because of a dispute over transit prices. Yanukovich gave no details about the agreement and did not indicate how he and Nazarbayev had resolved the dispute on transit tariffs, but he said some of the oil could stay in Ukraine and be used by local refineries.
Kazakhstan had re-routed its Europe-bound oil via Poland to bypass Ukraine altogether. Ukraine's government said in March it wanted to resume the transit of oil from Kazakhstan, a key Russian ally in Central Asia.