caspian sunrise plc said monday that the main impact on its business from sanctions against russia remains the discount at which its oil is traded the company operates in kazakhstan though its production is referenced to russias urals oil benchmark which has recently traded at a 3035 a barrel discount to brent representing a significant loss in revenue however caspian said this discount is likely to decrease as natural market arbitrage takes effect and some asian countries are expected to take advantage and switch their purchases to urals oil in addition the company said it expects the kazakh government to rename national production to differentiate it from oil produced in russia our oil is kazakh oil not russian oil even though at present they are both termed urals oil it is only an accident of geography that the current delivery mechanism takes it through russia caspian said shares at 0717 gmt were down 29 at 1700 pence