Kazakhstan ramps up its oil export to bypass Russia

KazTransOil, the national pipeline company in Kazakhstan (KTO), is going to export 125,000 tons of oil through the port of Aktau in April. This oil will then be transported toward the Mediterranean Sea via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC).

«In April 2023, we are planning to export 125,000 tons of oil via the BTC,» the company said in a statement.

The KTO has already exported 10,000 tons of oil from the Tengiz oil field from Aktau to Baku by the President Heydar Aliev oil tanker. By the end of March, an additional 10,000 tons is expected to be shipped by the same route.

Apart from the Tengiz oil, the pipeline company also exported 6,900 tons of oil from Kashagan, another huge oil field in Kazakhstan. The cargo sender was INPEX North Caspian Sea, Ltd. According to Hiroshi Ikeda, head of the Kazakhstan branch of INPEX North Caspian Sea, Ltd, the company is going to continue to cooperate with the government of Kazakhstan and its oil company KazMunayGas (the parent company for the KTO) to develop alternative routes for oil exports.

The KTO said that it has the technical capability to export about 6.2 million tons of oil via the port of Aktau per year. However, in reality, this route currently can take only 3.5 million tons of oil, including 1.5 million tons from Tengiz.

These corrections have been made due to massive earthquakes in Turkey in February. As a result of quakes, the seaport of Ceyhan suspended its operations last month. Currently, only one of two oil terminals operates in the port. However, it is busy with exports of Azerbaijani oil, so Kazakhstani oil senders have to wait.

The vast majority of Kazakhstani oil has been exported via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium to the seaport of Novorossiysk. After multiple incidents with the pipeline stopping operations, many oil companies are considering diversification of exporting routes for their oil.

At the same time, the KTO announced the start of exporting 25,000 tons of Russian oil to Uzbekistan via the Omsk-Pavlodar-Shymkent pipeline to the Shagyr rail oil loading facility. The company must send all this oil by the end of March. In general, the KTO plans to export about 250,000 tons of oil from Russia to Uzbekistan this year.