The co-founder of the Save the Caspian Sea movement, Vadim Ni, has filed a lawsuit against Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy, demanding that the production sharing agreements for the country’s largest oil projects — Kashagan, Tengiz and Karachaganak — be made public.
Ni told Kursiv.media that the case has already reached the Supreme Court. Environmentalists also plan to present a 10-step plan to save the Caspian Sea to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev soon.
«As for transparency, these three fields should operate under open agreements,» Ni said. «We requested the environmental conditions for the projects from the Ministry of Energy, but they refused. We went through the first instance, which rejected our claim, then the appellate instance, and now we are at the cassation stage in the Supreme Court.»
He added that activists plan to take the case to international courts once all domestic legal avenues have been exhausted.
Ten steps to save the sea
The movement’s proposed «10 steps» will soon be published on its website. Ni said the key ideas include transparency in economic activity and public access to pollution-monitoring data, which could be collected via satellites, drones and automated systems.
Funding, he noted, would be necessary for implementation, but many measures would require little cost, such as focusing on international conventions. Other initiatives could be financed through funds that oil field operators are already required to allocate.
«These are not budget costs — they’re already being spent,» Ni said. «We just don’t know how they’re being used. Some of the money goes toward expensive PR products or events financed at the request of local authorities but without regard for regional needs.»
Ni also questioned whether the payments made under the agreements are fair, particularly at Kashagan.
«Payments there are an order of magnitude lower than at Karachaganak or Tengiz, relative to production volumes,» he said.
The activist accused operators of using accounting schemes that delay significant payments to the state.
«It’s as if they say: we’ll recover our investments now, and only later make normal payments — when the sea is destroyed and oil is no longer in demand,» Ni said. «We should solve these problems today, not when it’s too late.»
In a related development, the Atyrau Regional Department of Ecology is preparing to appeal an Astana court ruling in favor of North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC), the operator of the Kashagan oil field, in a case over a 2.3 trillion tenge environmental fine, as reported by the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources.
