Germany wants Kazakhstan to double its oil exports

According to Energy Minister of Kazakhstan Almasadam Satkaliyev, Germany is interested in boosting Kazakhstan’s oil exports up to 200,000 tons per month; the oil goes to Germany via the Druzhba main oil pipeline. Over the period from May to October 2023, Kazakhstan exported about 100,000 tons of oil to Germany per month. In November, exports increased to 154,000 tons. In general, the EU accounted for more than half of all oil Kazakhstan exported last year (46.6 million tons). The minister revealed this data during his interview with the Adevural newspaper from Romania.

«In 2023, Kazakhstan exported 993,000 tons of oil to Germany. Now, the Germans are interested in boosting Kazakhstani oil exports to 2.4 million tons per year. Last year, the European Union accounted for 46.6 million tons or 66% of all Kazakhstani oil exports of 70.5 million tons,» the official said.

Even though in 2023, Kazakhstan shipped 1.2 million tons of oil to Germany’s Schwedt, its main buyers are Italy, France, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and other member states of the EU. In 2021, Kazakhstan exported 49 million tons of oil to Europe, 45 million tons in 2022 and 52 million in 2023.

«Kazakhstan is the reliable supplier of oil for Europe that secures its energy security; we are interested in expansion of such cooperation. Italy, the Netherlands, Greece, France, Turkey and Spain are key consumers of our oil,» Satkaliyev said.

In December 2022, KazTransOil reached arrangements with Russian state-owned company Transneft concerning the export of 1.2 million tons of oil to Germany.

Although the export was supposed to start in January 2023, it started in February 2023, when Kazakhstan shipped its first 20,000 tons to Germany. An additional 20,000 tons were sent in March and 50,000 tons in April. Only in April, the country got on track of 100,000 tons per month. From May to October 2023, the company exported 100,000 tons of oil to Germany each month.