Kazakhstan aims to further increase the volume of oil it exports through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, underscoring Astana’s continued efforts to diversify its routes amid the Central Asian region’s constrained geography.
Following a meeting in Astana this week with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, Kazakh Foreign Minister Murat Nurtleu noted that the two sides were implementing prior agreements to supply Kazakh energy resources to global markets via Azerbaijan.
“Last year, 1.4 million tons of oil were exported via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. In the future, it is planned to increase the volume of transit of Kazakhstani oil to 2.2 million tons per year,” he said.
In November 2022, Kazakhstan’s state-owned oil and gas company, KazMunayGas (KMG), signed a five-year agreement with Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company, SOCAR, in which 1.5 million tons of Kazakh oil would be transferred via the BTC pipeline from Azerbaijan to Georgia and on to Turkiye.
At the time, then-Kazakh Energy Minister Bolat Akchulakov indicated the country’s aims to increase its oil exports via alternative routes, with the Astana Times reporting that Kazakhstan planned “to increase oil supplies through Azerbaijan to 6-6.5 million tons.”
The agreement came as Kazakhstan looked to operationalize additional routes in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Writing in October 2022, Paolo Sorbello noted that oil producers in Kazakhstan recognized the risks of the war on pipelines running through Russia as well as the opportunities presented by European customers looking for alternative suppliers.
By April 2023, Kazakh oil was being shipped from Ceyhan, in Turkiye, across the Black Sea to the Petromidia refinery near the Romanian port of Constanta (the port of Midia, one of Constanta’s satellite ports, is used to supply the refinery). Petromidia is owned by KMG International, which acquired a 75 percent stake in the original operating company, Rompetrol, in 2007 and the final 25 percent in 2009. Petromidia is Romania’s only Black Sea coast refinery.
Bloomberg reported in March 2023 on Kazakh struggles to export enough crude oil via pipelines to meet European demands, given a drop in production in February 2023 amid unplanned maintenance work at the Tengiz field. Production volumes ebb and flow: in October 2024 maintenance work brought production levels down at the Kashagan field; in February 2025, however, Kazakhstan’s oil output hit a record high, in particular on the back of surging output at Tengiz.
There have also been more unique issues, such as the February 17 Ukrainian drone attack on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC). The CPC carries oil from Kazakhstan to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk; it handles an estimated 80 percent of Kazakhstan’s exports. According to RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, Azattyq, in 2024, the CPC transported 63 million tons of oil – 53 million tons from Kazakhstan – most of which went on to Europe and the United States.
An expansion of volumes routed through the BTC pipeline won’t come anywhere close to lessening Kazakhstan’s dependence on the CPC, but serves to underscore the continued necessity of expanding Astana’s options wherever possible. The significant volume Kazakhstan would need to reroute to eliminate its dependence on Russian territory arguably requires a pipeline across the Caspian Sea.
In an August 2024 article, Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, argued that a “pipeline is the only economically viable way to move natural gas across the Caspian Sea.”
A full decade ago, in 2016, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan were discussing a trans-Caspian project, building on a decade of prior discussion. While the pipeline remains a dream, the motivations for such a project continue to accrue.
