Discrepancies in Kazakhstan’s Oil Export Data Raise Questions

Oil remains Kazakhstan’s key export product. Despite stable production growth, recent export data suggests a decline in outbound shipments. Orda.kz has looked into the matter.

According to official statistics, Kazakhstan’s raw material exports in the first quarter of 2025 declined by 14.4% year-on-year. Oil exports showed a particularly sharp drop. Analysts at Halyk Finance previously called this trend unusual, as export volumes typically rise alongside production:

Oil supplies have decreased both in value terms (-21.2% year-on-year) and in physical volumes (-14% year-on-year), despite the growth of production in the country. Thus, oil production at KMG increased by 5.8% year-on-year, including due to the expansion of capacity at the Tengiz field. Such a multidirectional dynamics raises questions, since under normal conditions, production growth should be accompanied by an increase in export supplies,
 noted analyst Aidos Taybekuly.

This discrepancy raises several possibilities: has Kazakhstan reduced oil exports, leading to lower revenues for the National Fund, or could the issue be linked to data inconsistencies?

Oil analyst Olzhas Baidildinov explains that mismatches between production and export figures have long existed in Kazakhstan’s oil sector.

The scale of the current gap, however, is unclear.

In general, there has always been a difference between export, production and refining in Kazakhstan's oil industry. At different times, it reached several hundred thousand tons, maybe millions. This was explained by various factors, including the fact that different assessment and accounting systems were used. These include barrelization coefficients: some indicators are calculated in tons, others in barrels, and a barrel is a measure of volume. This difference has always existed,
 Baidildinov said.

A further complication is that various government bodies report different figures. The Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of National Economy, and the Customs Committee may all record data differently.

Additionally, oil that is currently in storage or still in transit may not yet appear in export reports.

According to Baidildinov, one way to reduce such discrepancies is full digital integration of the sector.

In Russia, they launched such a program, it was called ‘Oil Control’. In Kazakhstan, individual elements of the EMS, the electronic accounting system, have been implemented. But overall, it still needs to be finalized. What is it? It is a system that covers all fields, all wells, plus transportation, processing, and export with online sensors. Now, if I'm not mistaken, only a third of the wells in Kazakhstan are equipped with metering devices,
he explained. 

All oil-related data in Kazakhstan is collected by the Situational and Analytical Center of the Fuel and Energy Complex. This is where oil companies submit their production figures.

These daily numbers tend to be fairly consistent.

Still, the lack of comment from the Ministry of Energy about the discrepancy between production and export volumes remains notable.

A source within the industry told Orda.kz that the absence of clarification is unusual.

Without explanations from government agencies, it is impossible to understand where such different figures suddenly came from. One of the probable explanations is that this volume of oil is stored in reservoirs. There are storage facilities at Tengiz, Kashagan, and Karachaganak. This oil has been extracted, but is not immediately reflected in the statistics. But this is just my assumption — until there are official comments from government agencies, it is impossible to draw confident conclusions,
the source said. 

Baidildinov, however, expressed doubt about that explanation, citing storage limitations.

We don't have the reservoirs to store such a volume of oil. In fact, the president ordered the construction of oil storage facilities—two or three in the west of the country, to have reserves in the regions. But the ministry said that it is economically unprofitable. It is easier to stop production at the fields than to build oil storage facilities,
he stated. 

Another possible factor may be disruptions at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), including drone attacks and temporary shutdowns of offshore mooring systems. These events could have delayed exports from Tengiz, but they likely do not explain the full scale.

In some cases, discrepancies may stem from basic clerical errors. Baidildinov points to a recent instance involving electricity imports:

A couple of months ago, information suddenly appeared about abnormally high imports of electricity from Uzbekistan — but such volumes of purchases were physically impossible. Uzbekistan simply does not generate as much electricity as Kazakhstan allegedly purchased. The conclusion suggests itself that someone simply put a comma in the wrong place — and the error began to migrate through the statistical reports of official bodies. It is possible that the same thing happened with oil exports,
he said. 

In the absence of clear explanations from the Ministry of Energy, such theories remain speculative — but not implausible. For now, the discrepancy between production and export volumes remains unresolved.

Original Author: Nikita Drobny