With the production of crude oil set to rise in Kazakhstan, the country plans to increase shipments across the Caspian Sea and through Azerbaijan.
On March 6th, Kazakhstan’s Minister of Energy Almasadam Satkaliev met his Azerbaijan counterpart, Parviz Shahbazov, to discuss cooperation between their countries regarding the transit of Kazakh oil and the implementation of large-scale renewable energy projects.
Back in 2022, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ordered an increase in the volume of oil transported across the Caspian Sea. In response, Kazakhstan’s national oil and gas company KazMunayGas and the state oil company of Azerbaijan, SOCAR, entered into an agreement to transport up to 1.5 million tons of oil per year from Kazakhstan’s Aktau port through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.
In 2023 Kazakhstan’s shipment of crude oil from the Caspian port of Aktau grew to almost 1.4 million tons and this year, is expected to rise to 1.5 million tons.
Major expansion projects are currently underway at Kazakhstan’s Tengiz, Karachaganak, and Kashagan oil fields to increase the future output of crude oil.
Today, most of the country’s oil is exported via the pipeline managed by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) which runs to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. The throughput capacity of the Kazakh section of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pipeline has increased from 54 million to 72.5 million tons per year.
The Kazakh and Azeri energy ministers also discussed a forthcoming project to connect the Caucasus region and Central Asia’s energy systems through the installation of a deep-sea cable in the Caspian Sea.
