By Raushan Nurshayeva

ASTANA, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan plans to double its
crude oil export duty to $40 per tonne from Jan. 1, two
government sources told Reuters on Monday, less than six months
after reinstating the tax when prices recovered from lows in the
financial crisis.

The government cabinet of Kazakhstan, Central Asia's biggest
oil producer, will discuss the issue at its regular meeting on
Tuesday, both sources said.

"This data already officially exists. We are expecting the
decree from the government," one of the two sources said.

A government spokesman said budgetary issues would be
discussed on Tuesday, but added he did not have any details of
the meeting and had no knowledge of revisions to the oil duty.

Kazakhstan's decision to bring back a tax on almost all
crude oil exports in July effectively revised the terms of its
long-standing agreements with two major foreign-led oil groups.

At $20 per tonne, the current duty is a tenth of the level
applied before the tax was scrapped in January 2009 in a move to
help producers ride out low crude prices during the global
financial crisis.
Analysts have compared Kazakhstan's reintroduction of the
duty to efforts by Russia and other resource-rich nations to
become more assertive with foreign investors at a time of a high
oil price cycle.
The move follows a number of steps by Kazakhstan over the
past few years to revise production-sharing terms with groups
led by U.S. energy giant Chevron and a consortium of ENI and BG
, despite protests from the majors.

The Chevron-led Tengiz group and the Karachaganak consortium
led by BG and ENI will no longer be exempt from the duty,
Finance Minister Bolat Zhamishev said in July.

Kazakhstan hopes to collect about $406 million in additional
revenue from the current duty by the end of this year.

Tengiz and Karachaganak are set to be dwarfed by another
project, Kashagan, when an ENI-led group launches production at
one of the world's biggest fields later this decade.
(Additonal reporting by Katya Golubkova in Moscow, writing by
Robin Paxton, editinb by Jane Baird)