Kazakhstan
The port war now runs on both shores of the Black Sea
Russia says it struck cargo vessels and fuel storage at Ukraine's Pivdennyi and Chornomorsk ports on 25 August, extending a campaign against Ukrainian harbours it has run since mid-July. Across the water, Russia's own grain terminals at Novorossiysk are idle for a third week, and moving Kazakh oil through the same sea still costs nearly $400,000 a day.
A Kazakh refinery turns north, and the minister calls the terms normal
Kazakhstan's energy ministry says an arrangement is in place under which the Kondensat refinery in Aksay keeps up to 30% of its petrol and diesel at home and sends the rest to Russia. The tonnage is small. The direction, with Russia's own petrol exports banned into 2027, is the news.
Adilet takes 110 of 145 seats on 71% of the vote
Kazakhstan's Central Election Commission published the seat distribution for the new Kurultai on 25 August. Adilet takes 110 of the 145 seats on 71.17% of the vote, which is 75.9% of the chamber.
Kazakhstan cuts its oil plan by exactly what the strikes took
On 25 August Kazakhstan's energy ministry took the 2026 oil and condensate plan down to 96 million tonnes and put the losses from strikes on Caspian Pipeline Consortium facilities at about 3.5 million tonnes. The year opened on a plan of 99.55 million. Subtract the loss from the opening plan and you land within 50,000 tonnes of the new figure. On that arithmetic the ministry is assuming nothing back.
Kazakhstan's cabinet is ordered out, and it plans the next 3 years
The government President Tokayev has told to resign spent Tuesday morning approving Kazakhstan's economic forecast for 2027 to 2029: growth above 5%, exports rising to $88.5 billion, and 5 trillion tenge of targeted National Fund money. The numbers will outlive the cabinet that wrote them.
The price of shipping Kazakh oil eases off its record
The Baltic Exchange's weekly report has the Novorossiysk-to-Augusta Suezmax run settling Thursday at WS532, a round trip earning "just under $400,000" a day, almost 40 Worldscale points off in a week.
Five parties are in, and the observers split over the count
Kazakhstan's election commission gave the Kurultai vote its first official numbers on Monday: Adilet at 71.17%, five parties past the 5% bar, turnout trimmed overnight to 74.08%. By evening the OSCE's mission had assessed more than a third of the counts it watched negatively, while the CIS, SCO and Turkic missions cleared the vote in full.
S&P returns Kazakhstan to BBB for the first time since 2016
S&P Global Ratings raised Kazakhstan's sovereign rating one notch to BBB with a stable outlook, in a decision reported on Saturday. The upgrade lands in a summer when the route that carries most of the country's export crude loads under drone attack.
Exit polls give Kazakhstan a five-party Kurultai, and the government prepares to resign
Kazakhstan's first Kurultai election closed on Sunday with turnout of 74.19% and every published exit poll giving Adilet about 7 votes in 10. The official result is due by 30 August; the appointments that follow it, a resigning cabinet and the country's first vice-president, are due within days of the count.
Georgia's new refinery runs its first Kazakh crude
Kulevi took 5,500 tonnes of Kazakh crude in July, the first Kazakhstan has ever sold into Georgia, at $3.2 million. The operator says August cargoes and Libyan barrels will finish replacing Russian supply. For Astana the volume is a rounding error. For Tbilisi, direction.
Kazakhstan's first Kurultai campaign ends with 59,000 questions
Wednesday night's television debates closed the argument phase of Kazakhstan's first elections to the Kurultai, the 145-seat single chamber replacing the Senate and the Mazhilis. Two campaign days remain; the country votes on Sunday.
The Middle Corridor is one row in Washington's tariff table
Caucasus and Central Asia holds 4 names together: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, filed under Belt-and-Road Overland Nodes. That label does more work than any of the coverage that trickled into regional media this week.
Kazakhstan’s foreign vote loses 3 stations before Sunday
Polling stations in Ukraine, Iran and Ethiopia will not open for the 23 August Kurultai election, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday, as ballots go out to 70 stations abroad and the campaign closes tonight on television.
A 72 million tonne forecast meets a 33 million tonne half
The CPC moved 33.35 million tonnes of crude in the first half of 2026, down 7.4% on a year earlier, by figures Interfax carried on Tuesday from KazMunayGas’s operational report. A 72 million tonne plan for the year is still on the books, and the books now require a bigger half than either half of 2025.
Novorossiysk resumes its loadings, and the ships burn again
Novorossiysk reopened for crude on Sunday. Within 2 days a drone found a tanker whose tracking pointed to the CPC terminal, a grain ship burned out on approach, and the second Kazakh cargo the restart promised remains unconfirmed.
The blackout inquiry stops at the border
Four days after two Toktogul generators tripped and Kazakhstan's south went dark, the inquiries multiply on each side of the border and the joint one exists only in Bishkek's appeals. Kazakhstan's Tuesday cabinet session went to school readiness.
Washington's transshipment map reaches the region, and Tbilisi demands facts
A White House report on Chinese tariff evasion places Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in one category of small transit economies, and on Tuesday Georgia's prime minister answered it: show a fact.
7 months of Central Asian oil via BTC equal 14 days of the CPC
Azerbaijan's statistics committee published the seven-month ledger of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline on Monday: 14.8 million tonnes, down 8.6% on last year, of which Central Asian oil made 2.6 million. Measured against the CPC system's own half-year rate, the transit leg every redistribution plan cites amounts to about 14 days of flow.
Kazakh crude is loading again at Novorossiysk
Novorossiysk resumed crude loadings on Sunday, Reuters reported on Monday, citing two industry sources, and the first two cargoes the sources describe are Kazakhstan's KEBCO grade. A Suezmax began loading Sunday and was due to sail Monday; a second tanker was expected to start on 80,000 tonnes of KEBCO on Tuesday.
The tanker leaves in the log, and nowhere else
The port-call record for Aegean Dream now shows a departure from Novorossiysk at 07:02 UTC Monday after a 10-hour call. The ship's transponder, dark since 10 August, confirms none of it.