A 20% reserve margin appears in a Kazakh plan
The cabinet put its energy and utilities national project on the table on Tuesday morning. Inside it sits a target for spare capacity, with a date on it.
Dushanbe says the Russian petrol ban should not reach it
Russia supplies 72.3% of the fuel Tajikistan burns. Its energy minister says the indicative balance has recently run into difficulty, and that the export ban extended last week should not in principle touch deliveries made under an intergovernmental agreement.
The pipeline restarts after production halved
CPC began taking Kazakh crude again on Sunday evening. By then national output was running at about half its June average, roughly twice the drop that had been reported all week.
Kyrgyzstan rewrites its fuel subsidy for a wider border
Moscow will hold its gasoline export ban to the end of the year. Bishkek is redrafting its subsidy rules so that supported fuel can arrive at any crossing point, from any third country.
A fifth of the country’s output, gone in a day
Kazakhstan starts moving oil around a closed route
With loading at the CPC terminal shut for a fifth day, Astana had begun redirecting exports to alternative routes and was assessing its losses, Kommersant reported on 20 July, while the consortium has gone to court against Ukraine over damage it values in billions of roubles. The energy ministry now frames the production cut as a technological necessity: with the terminal’s tanks full, companies trimmed daily volumes to stop the system overflowing.
Tengiz halves its output
Kazakhstan cut oil and gas condensate production on 22 July after export loadings stopped at the CPC terminal, Reuters reported, citing a source: daily output at Tengiz fell to 406,000 barrels from 925,000. The energy ministry confirmed a temporary reduction and said consultations are running with the consortium, shippers and shipowners.
Bishkek lines up fuel from four directions
At a briefing in Bishkek on 21 July the energy minister, Altynbek Rysbekov, named the sources now filling Kyrgyzstan’s tanks: a first consignment dispatched from China by road, Belarusian fuel already arriving by rail, Kazakh fuel oil at 15,000 to 20,000 tons a month, and a tolling arrangement with Uzbekistan. Russia still supplies more than 90% of Kyrgyzstan’s gasoline; in this particular list it appears as the corridor Belarusian fuel travels through.
Novorossiysk stops taking Kazakh oil
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium has stopped accepting Kazakh crude and the terminal’s tanks are full, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Tracking data shows at least two tankers bound for the berths have changed course. There is a measured precedent for what follows: when the terminal was attacked last November, Reuters reported Kazakh output falling about 6% the following month.
The market answers first: charterers flee the CPC water
Foreign shipowners are refusing to send tankers to the CPC terminal after four tankers were hit in four days, Bloomberg reported, and the consortium was expected to stop accepting Kazakh pipeline crude on Tuesday. If intake stays shut into the weekend, Bloomberg’s sources say, Kazakhstan’s producers will have to cut output. The war has traveled the route’s full length, from the berths to the wellhead.
A $25 million refinery signs into Kyrgyzstan’s fuel gap
The cabinet signed an investment agreement on 20 July with the company Central Asian Energy to build and operate a refinery in Kochkor-Ata: $25 million, capacity above 450,000 tons of products a year, with a first stage due by the end of 2026. Construction has already begun.
Uzbekistan’s grid runs a fifth record day
Daily consumption hit 293.4 million kilowatt-hours on 17 July, 7.6% above last summer’s maximum, and the energy ministry counted five consecutive record days through the weekend. On Monday four Tashkent districts were warned of possible short outages; relief arrives with the heat easing from Tuesday.
The protest was answered by the next drone
Loading at the CPC terminal restarted on Sunday evening and stopped again on Monday morning, when a drone hit the tanker NELSA at the mooring where one of Sunday’s two tankers had burned. Twenty-two of the crew were taken off by CPC tugs. A day after Kazakhstan demanded the attacks end, the demand’s market price was set at zero.
The drones reached the tankers loading Kazakhstan’s oil
On 17 and 19 July drone strikes hit three tankers serving the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s Black Sea terminal, two of them at the loading berths with Tengiz and Kashagan crude aboard. Loading stopped, and on Sunday Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry called the attacks an encroachment on the country’s economic interests, demanded they end and reserved the right to claim damages.
Two lines tripped, and Kyrgyzstan went dark at 40 degrees
Just after 14:00 on Friday, the 220 kV lines running Kara-Balta to Glavnaya and Glavnaya to Shu disconnected at once, and automatic load shedding cut power to most of Bishkek and to districts across four regions at the peak of a 40-degree afternoon. Supply was largely back by late afternoon; the cause of the double trip is being established.
The region’s fuel importer starts guarding fuel like an exporter
Kyrgyzstan, which buys over 90% of its fuel from Russia, banned the export of gasoline, diesel and crude on Tuesday, indefinitely: the ban runs until the domestic market is fully supplied, or until the EAEU’s common oil market arrives, whichever comes first. The government says it has asked five countries for help and signed fuel contracts with Belarus and China.
Almaty’s winter project is 26% built, and the premier starts naming names
Prime minister Bektenov used Tuesday’s government meeting to threaten the head of Samruk-Energo with personal responsibility if Almaty’s CHP-3 is not finished by year-end. The gas-conversion project stands at 26%. In June the same warning went to the head of the railways, who is now the former head of the railways.
Kazakhstan’s oil windfall lands on a 3.3-million-tonne hole
A day after Brent’s biggest jump in six years, Kazakhstan’s energy minister told the government that first-half output fell 8.4%, to 45.7 million tonnes. The price came from one war; much of the hole came from the other. And the ministry’s patch for it is the one this desk watches for: deferring maintenance.
Oil at $83 pays Kazakhstan and bills its neighbors
Brent settled at $83.30 on Monday, up 9.6% in what CNN called its biggest one-day percentage gain in over six years, after Washington announced a blockade of Iranian ports and Tehran hit two Emirati tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Crossings through the strait have more than halved. For Central Asia the same price line runs in two directions at once.