Kazakhstan to Increase Oil Supplies bypassing Russia, But Not by 13x

Kazakhstan plans to increase the volume of oil supplies via Azerbaijan in 2025, Orda.kz reports.

According to KazMunayGas, the board chair of the national company, Askhat Khasenov, met in Baku with the president of the Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR, Rovshan Najaf. They discussed the agreement to transport Kazakhstan's oil from Aqtau via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.

At the end of 2024, the shipment volume amounted to 1.4 million tons. The plan for the current year is 1.7 million tons of oil, writes KMG

Khasenov and Najaf also touched upon the issue related to the implementation of the strategic agreement on decarbonization. They also discussed possible joint projects in geological exploration and oil and gas production, attracting investment and digitalization.

The Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan considers deliveries via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan route as a good alternative to transit through Russia (currently, 80% of oil from Kazakhstan is exported via the CPC pipeline).

In November last year, it was reported that Kazakhstan would like to increase the transportation of its raw materials via Azerbaijan by more than 13 times, from 1.4 to 20 million tons.

SOCAR is ready to accept no more than 2.2 million Kazakhstan's oil via BTC so as not to reduce the quality of its own Azeri Light brand.

At the end of January, the first batch of oil from Kashagan was already sent from Aqtau.

Original Author: Nikita Drobny