The yuan deal was priced on 28 August, so the numbers are 5 days old and the settlement is today. KazMunayGas sold 1.5 billion yuan of 5-year notes at a 2.3% coupon (2.45% yield) and 2 billion yuan of 10-year notes at 2.8% (2.98% yield), 3.5 billion yuan in all, about $521 million at the Bank of Russia's 1 September cross-rate. The order book peaked above 25 billion yuan, more than 7 times the size of the deal, which the company calls the largest order book for a dim sum issue by a borrower from outside China and Hong Kong. Moody's rated the notes Baa1, the company's own grade.
Those coupons landed 65 basis points inside the guidance the company had opened with on 26 August, when CAW reported a book building at about 2.95% for 5 years and about 3.45% for 10. A 7-times cover explains the tightening; it does not explain the level.
The level is explained by the other track. KazMunayGas is running a tender for its $1.25 billion of 5.375% notes due 24 April 2030, with a cap of $500 million. Holders who tender by 17:00 New York time today receive $1,012 per $1,000; those who wait for the standard deadline receive $982. The window closes 18 September.
Same borrower, two prices. Set the two side by side and the arithmetic is plain. The company is retiring dollar debt that costs 5.375% and paying a premium to do it early, while raising yuan at 2.3% and 2.8%. On coupon alone the new money costs less than half the old.
Coupon alone is the wrong measure. The company knows it. A yuan liability is a bet on the yuan, and KazMunayGas earns dollars on most of what it sells. The full cost of the new notes is the coupon plus whatever it costs, or would cost, to swap yuan into dollars for 5 and 10 years; the company has not published a hedge, and the SOURCES block records the question. What the deal shows without a swap is where the demand is: 25 billion yuan of orders from banks, insurers, hedge funds and sovereign funds after a 2-day roadshow in Hong Kong.
On coupon alone the new money costs less than half the old.
That demand is the strategic fact. A Kazakh state company with Baa1 paper can now fill a yuan book 7 times over at a coupon under 3%, at a moment when it is paying $1,012 per $1,000 to take its dollar notes back. The money is being raised against a hard summer for the oil: the 2026 production plan was trimmed by 3.5 million tonnes to 96 million for what the Black Sea war took from CPC loadings.
Settlement itself is a formality. The number to watch after it is the tender result: how much of the $500 million cap is filled early, at the $1,012 price, tells how many dollar holders want out at $1,012.