Kazakhstan will supply 50,000 metric tons of crude to China directly from the Kashagan oilfield in December after a Ukrainian drone damaged the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) at the Black Sea terminal, Reuters reported on Monday.
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pipeline is a primary route for exporting oil from Kazakhstan’s major fields, including Kashagan, along with Tengiz and Karachaganak, sending it to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk for global markets. It’s a crucial artery for Kazakh oil, though geopolitical disruptions have led Kazakhstan to seek alternative routes like the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline to reduce reliance on Russian infrastructure.
CPC’s main pipeline, from Tengiz in Kazakhstan to Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, is approximately 1,511 kilometers (939 miles) long, a key energy route transporting oil from Kazakhstan and Russia to the world market.
Kazakhstan has increased BTC flows significantly in 2025 in a bid to diversify away from Russian routes, with plans to boost flows to 2.2 million tons annually and ongoing discussions for further expansion. Kazakh oil travels via tanker from Aktau port to Baku, then joins the BTC pipeline for transit to Turkey’s Ceyhan port, with major fields like Tengiz and Kashagan contributing.
Kashagan is a massive offshore oil project in Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea, defined by extreme reservoir pressure and high hydrogen-sulfide content that have required extensive corrosion-resistant engineering. The field first achieved production in 2013 before being shut down and then relaunched commercially in 2016, and it has since become one of the country’s most important assets. Recoverable reserves are commonly estimated between 9 and 13 billion barrels, and output reached a record 18.8 million tons in 2023, equal to roughly 380,000–400,000 barrels per day. Growth prospects remain tied to debottlenecking and infrastructure reliability after earlier pipeline failures and cost overruns.
Tengiz is Kazakhstan’s largest producing field and one of the world’s biggest, with 7-11 billion barrels of recoverable crude across the Tengiz and Korolev reservoirs. Base production has long hovered around 600,000 barrels per day, but output began climbing sharply in early 2025 as the long-delayed Future Growth Project–Wellhead Pressure Management Project moved into initial operation. The expansion is designed to add 260,000 barrels per day and lift total production to about 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day once fully ramped, with oil continuing to flow primarily through the CPC pipeline to the Black Sea.
By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com
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