KAZAKHSTAN’S OIL WEALTH LACKS EXPORT OUTLET.

Kazakhstan plans to boost crude oil extraction from the current 21.6 million tons to 47.6 million tons by the year 2000, and to 71 million tons by 2010. More than half of the planned increase will come from the giant Tengiz oilfield on the Caspian Sea, exploited in partnership with the US Chevron Oil company. The search is on for an outlet for this production. But the only option under active consideration thus far is a pipeline from Tengiz to Russia’s port of Novorossiisk on the Black Sea, where the oil would be shipped and piped in several stages to Western markets. A Russia-Kazakhstan-Oman consortium formed in 1992 to build that pipeline has been unable to come up with the financing. A new pipeline consortium is about to be created by Kazakhstan with a 25 percent stake, Russia’s LukOil with 25 percent, and the Chevron, US Mobil Oil, British Gas, and Italian Agip companies which will divide the remaining 50 percent among themselves. (16) The route via Russia is circuitous, physically insecure in the Caucasus, subject to the manipulation of access to the Russian pipeline system, facing weather-caused seasonal interruptions at Novorossiisk, and entailing high transshipment costs between Russia and the West. This route would also enable the Russian government to exercise a significant measure of control over Kazakhstan’s resources and income.

1. BNS, November 20

2. Interfax-Ukraine, BNS, November 20

3. Reuter, Itar-Tass, November 21

4. BNS, November 20

5. Reuter, November 20

6. Itar-Tass and Interfax, November 20

7. Interfax, November 20

8. Interfax-Eurasia, November 20

9. Reuter and Interfax, November 20

10. Reuter and Interfax, November 20

11. Interfax, November 20

12. BNS, November 17 through 20

13. Itar-Tass and Interfax, November 17

14. Itar-Tass, Krasnaya zvezda, November 17

15. Flux and Basapress, November 17 and 18

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