Kazakhstan
Washington's Iranian-airline sweep lands in Kazakhstan as a ticket agent and in Tbilisi as 6 airlines
The US Treasury's designation of 27 Iranian airlines and their foreign enablers on Tuesday named one Central Asian company, Tour Invest of Kazakhstan, as Mahan Air's general sales agent. On Thursday Georgia's Civil Aviation Agency said 6 of the newly listed carriers fly between Georgia and Iran and that Tbilisi will act in full compliance with the sanctions regime. Astana had said nothing the desk found by evening.
Kazakhstan's energy ministry says CPC loading stopped on 2 buoys after Tuesday's drone incident and resumed after checks
Loading at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium's marine terminal near Novorossiysk was halted on single-point moorings 2 and 3 after “an incident with an unmanned aerial vehicle” close to the terminal on 8 September and resumed in normal mode once the cargo systems and the tankers had been inspected, Kazakhstan's Ministry of Energy said on Wednesday. No restrictions were placed on accepting oil from Kazakh shippers, it said. The consortium's own channel has carried no operational statement since 30 July.
Kazakhstan pauses collecting its $5.2 billion Kashagan fine after NCOC takes the bailiff to court
Enforcement of the 2.36 trillion tenge ($5.2 billion) environmental penalty against North Caspian Operating Company has been on hold since 7 September, Kazakhstan's Justice Ministry said on Wednesday, because the consortium challenged the state enforcement officer's actions and the Atyrau administrative court called for the file. Collection “will continue in the manner established by law”, the ministry said. The fine itself stands.
Brent clears $100 for the first time since July, with Azeri Light at $108 against the $65 in Baku's budget
Azeri Light printed $108.18 a barrel CIF Augusta in Trend's Wednesday-morning table, 66% above the $65 average written into Azerbaijan's 2026 budget. By 10:25 Moscow time the November Brent contract had passed $100 for the first time since 24 July, Interfax reported. Kazakhstan's budget law runs on $60, and its tenge lost 2.5 tenge against the dollar on the same day.
Drones kill 4 in Novorossiysk and set a fuel-oil terminal alight in the port that ships Kazakhstan's oil
An overnight drone attack on Novorossiysk killed four people, a child among them, and injured 29, the governor of Krasnodar Krai said on Wednesday morning. Ukrainian monitoring channels and satellite heat data placed a fire at the fuel-oil terminal inside the commercial port. The city is the sea end of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, the route for more than 80% of Kazakhstan's oil exports, and no statement on loading had appeared on the consortium's channel by evening; the desk did not reach Transneft.
Georgia promises to double its ports by 2032 for a corridor whose shallowest link is on the other sea
Georgia's sea ports and terminals handled 13.7 million tonnes in the first 8 months of 2026, 24% more than a year earlier and the best figure in ten years, the economy minister told the Georgia International Maritime Forum in Batumi. The prime minister, at the same opening, set a ten-year target: railway capacity doubled, port capacity doubled, airport capacity tripled, about $7 billion by 2032. The desk's own reading of the route puts its narrowest section across Azerbaijan and the Caspian, at a Kazakh quay whose fenders are broken and whose water is falling, and there the only dated commitment is a dredging contract.
Kazakhstan and China sign a policing agreement for the Khorgos trade centre after 14 years of talks
Interior minister Yerzhan Sadenov signed an intergovernmental agreement on security and public order at the Khorgos International Centre of Boundary Cooperation on a working visit to Beijing on 7 September, the ministry said; its spokesman told Tengrinews on Tuesday that the negotiation had taken 14 years. A second agreement gives mutual recognition to the two countries' driving licences.
OPEC+'s seven hold October at September's level while Brent opens the week at $97
Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman decided on Sunday to keep their October required production at the September level, with Kazakhstan's line at 1.628 million barrels a day. Brent's November contract traded at $97.28 at 08:15 Moscow time on Monday, up $1 on the day, and the tenge closed at 454.31 to the dollar, 2.04 stronger than on Friday.
Kazakhstan approves a 700 MW coal plant for its nuclear town, and the coal's owners are among the plant's founders
The government approved on Saturday an investment agreement with GRES Kurchatov LLP for an 881 billion tenge ($1.94 billion) coal-fired station in Kurchatov, the Abai region town that houses the National Nuclear Centre and the country's tokamak. Two of the company's founders, Eduard Ogay and Vladimir Dzhumanbayev, also appear in the 2020 share register of Karazhyra, the mine named at the foundation ceremony as its coal source. The release gives the size and the date. It does not give the price the grid will pay.
On the map in your pocket, Russia is 10 Central Asias. On the ground it is 4.3
The UN General Assembly voted on Friday to push the world's maps away from Mercator, for Africa's sake. CAW ran the same arithmetic across Eurasia: the standard web map hands Russia a latitude premium that doubles its visual weight against Central Asia, and hands Central Asia a premium of its own against every neighbour to its south and east. Correcting the map takes the northern half of that bargain away.
Kazakhstan's vice-president gets a decree of his own, and the Presidential Administration keeps the staff
On Saturday Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed decree No. 1452 «On the powers of the Vice-President of the Republic of Kazakhstan», the decree that says what Yerlan Karin does in the office he took on 31 August. It gives the vice-president strategic initiatives to draft, seven commissions and councils to run, the Secretariat of the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions to head and the KISI think tank to supervise. Everything outward, from the Kurultai to a foreign summit, he does «on the instruction of the President», and his support comes from the Presidential Administration, where he served as first deputy head until his appointment.
Kazakhstan's central bank forecasts at $89 oil, and names next year's fiscal stimulus as the limit on its cuts
The National Bank cut its base rate to 16.25% on Friday and told the market why the room below it is limited: next year's budget will spend more, and the extra comes from the National Fund. The bank's own forecast runs on $89 oil this year. The budget law now in force was written at $60.
Astana breaks its silence on the Uzbek scholar, and says Tashkent has been told
Kazakhstan's National Security Committee gave its first public word on the case of Ikboljon Qoraboyev on Thursday, in reply to a Tengrinews request: the pre-trial file is closed to disclosure under article 201 of the criminal procedure code, and «the Uzbek side has been officially notified through diplomatic channels». Two months into the detention, it is the first confirmation from either government that the case exists.
Erdogan's Black Sea shipping mechanism would start at the berth where Kazakh oil loads
Flying home from Bishkek on Wednesday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the reporters on his plane that the Black Sea needs «a mechanism that will permanently secure the safety of commercial shipping», and that Turkey's concern covers «all civilian sea transport», beyond ships under its own flag or management. He named no design in the remarks Haber7 printed. The ships with the most to gain are the tankers that load Kazakhstan's oil at Novorossiysk, where the Caspian Pipeline Consortium's terminal logged three attacks in July.
Kazakhstan's central bank decides with its first sub-10% print and Brent 58% above the budget's price
The National Bank of Kazakhstan announces its base-rate decision at 12:00 Astana time on Friday with August inflation at 9.8%, the first reading under 10% since the bank began cutting in June, and Brent at $95. The budget the bank is asked to protect was written at $60 a barrel and 540 tenge to the dollar; the market has delivered $95 and 456.
KazMunayGas takes $500 million of the $658 million its dollar bondholders offered
Holders of KazMunayGas's 5.375% notes due 2030 tendered $658.1 million by the early deadline of 2 September, the company said on Thursday. It will buy $500 million of them, the cap it set in August, at a proration factor of 73.1%, and settle on 4 September.
Russian crude reaches Kyrgyzstan by Kazakh pipeline for the first time: 35,000 tonnes in August
KazTransOil says it carried its first transit oil to Kyrgyzstan in August: 35,000 tonnes moved through its trunk pipelines to the Shagyr loading point and on by rail. Reuters names the origin as Russia. The route matters because Moscow's export bans cover petrol and diesel, and crude is the good that still travels.
Tokayev completes his cabinet on day 4 of 10, and changes 3 of its 24 names
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the decrees that fill Kazakhstan's government on Thursday, 4 days into the 10 that the law on government gives a new prime minister. Of the 24 posts under Olzhas Bektenov, 21 keep the people who held them before the August election; the foreign, culture and emergencies ministries change hands.
The summit nobody counted the same way
A peak that lost a name to gain one, guests numbered 17, 18 or 21, documents 28 or 29, and a chamber that approved a government without saying by how many votes. In the region's week of ceremonies, numbers appeared where they flattered and vanished where they would bind.