In 2023, Kazakhstan is set to export 1.5 million tons of oil through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, according to The Astana Times, citing a press release by state-owned KazMunayGas (KMG).
For the purpose of exporting oil to its neighbor, the Kazakh side will get to choose an oil transportation business.
In order to transport 1.5 million tons of oil through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, the KMG, and Azerbaijani SOCAR inked a five-year deal.
The oil businesses from Kazakhstan that will transport this volume starting in 2019 are still to be determined. According to Dauren Karabayev, deputy chair for economics and finance at KMG, both sides anticipate volumes to rise in the future because Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are interested in this.
Bolat Akchulakov, the minister of energy for Kazakhstan, had already stated that the country intended to enhance oil exports via other channels. In specifically, 6-6.5 million tons more of oil will be supplied through Azerbaijan.
According to the government’s expectations, yearly exports through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline should eventually reach 6-6.5 million tons, prime minister Alikhan Smailov said in a statement to the media.
Currently, more than two-thirds of Kazakhstan’s oil exports are routinely routed through Russia and into Europe. The Middle Corridor, which includes the Caspian Sea and the group of nations that includes Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, has, nevertheless, recently received significant attention for its potential development.
According to Smailov, Kazakhstan’s export route diversification plan relies on the use of tankers from the port of Aktau to provide oil into the Baku-Supsa pipeline, which terminates on the Black Sea coast of Georgia, and trains traveling along the Baku-Batumi railway line, as well as trains traveling from the oil-rich area of Atyrau to Uzbekistan and China.
By 2025, Kazakhstan wants to boost its yearly output to 100 million tons, according to Nurlan Zhumagulov, the head of the lobbying group the Union of Oilfield Service Companies. The Kashagan mega-field and Tengizchevroil’s increased output capacity will be the main means of achieving this.
