Energy
Resources and climate
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.
7 months of Central Asian oil via BTC equal 9 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 June rate, the transit leg every redistribution plan cites amounts to 8 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.
The tanker is inside the port and nothing shows it loading
Aegean Dream’s port call log now reads arrived, Novorossiysk, Sunday 20:45 UTC. Every other signal reads dark: no live AIS fix since 10 August, ballast draught on the last one, no loading recorded, no departure.
Bishkek admits the generators tripped and rejects the blame
Kyrgyzstan’s energy ministry answered Kazakhstan’s account of Friday’s four-country blackout at midday on Monday: yes, two Toktogul hydrogenerators briefly disconnected, and no, that does not make Kyrgyzstan responsible for what followed. The same morning, at home, the cabinet chief was tearing into the ministry for 26 emergency outages in 18 months.
A $10.7 billion corruption claim surfaces inside the Kashagan arbitration
Kazakhstan is arguing in its closed arbitration against the Kashagan consortium that about a dozen contracts worth some $10.7 billion involved self-dealing, unjustified cost increases or bribery, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported on Friday. The allegation is the corruption limb of a claim that has grown to $160 billion.
Four countries lost power in one afternoon, and the operators blame each other
A cascading failure on Friday cut electricity in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan within minutes. Kazakhstan’s operator says the trigger sat at Toktogul, and Bishkek has not answered the claim.
The tank farm is full at Kazakhstan’s other Novorossiysk outlet
Crude exports through Sheskharis, the terminal that ships Kazakhstan’s KEBCO grade alongside Russian oil, halted on Friday after a tanker turned back to sea and the storage behind the pier reached its limit. No restart had surfaced in the wires by Monday morning, and the CPC terminal next door has now said nothing in its own name for 18 days.
Novorossiysk halts its trains and its grain, and Kazakh oil keeps loading
Russian Railways closed loading toward the port for ten days on Thursday. One grain terminal stopped work the same day, another is repairing damage, and the harbour shuts twice today for live artillery practice. Kazakhstan’s crude leaves from a mooring fifteen kilometres west of all of it, and it is the one flow nobody has suspended.
The record rate to ship Kazakh oil is $440,948 a day
Daily earnings for a tanker running from Novorossiysk to Augusta reached $440,948 on Wednesday, the highest figure in a Baltic Exchange series that begins in July 2008. Washington's undertaking with Kyiv, three weeks old, covers the pipe and the terminal. The price is set somewhere else.
Kazakhstan’s oil route now rests on a phone call it was not part of
On 31 July, JD Vance asked Volodymyr Zelensky to stop striking the route Kazakhstan uses to sell most of its oil. Ukraine agreed not to target Caspian Pipeline Consortium infrastructure or non-Russian ships, and a US administration official has confirmed the warning. Last night’s attack on Novorossiysk, the heaviest of this crisis, was the first large test of that undertaking.
Afghanistan signs up to buy the gas it agreed to carry
Türkmengaz and Afghan Gas have signed a memorandum under which Afghanistan will purchase TAPI gas for its own needs. The transit country is becoming a customer, at a price not yet negotiated.
The injured are recounted before the dead can fly home
Uzbekistan's working group reached Nizhnekamsk on Tuesday evening. The special flight it came to organise still has no date, and the official counts of the wounded moved twice in a day.
Nine hours over Novorossiysk, and the tanker due Thursday stays dark
Russia's largest Black Sea port spent the night of 11-12 August under a combined drone attack that ran past nine hours. The crude tanker due at the CPC terminal on Thursday morning has meanwhile been silent on AIS for more than 40 hours.
Mongolia's ministry publishes the Moscow promise, and Russia says nothing
The claim that Russia will send Mongolia an extra 25,000 tonnes of petrol this month moved on Tuesday from a minister's social account to his ministry's own website. No Russian institution has confirmed it.
Rosatom signs for 100 megawatts of Kyrgyz wind
Rosatom’s wind arm, the Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund and the Eurasian Development Bank have signed for a 100 MW wind farm at Kok-Moinok in the Issyk-Kul region. The signature is five days old; the full public record of it assembled only this week.
Russia agrees to send Mongolia 25,000 more tonnes of petrol
Industry and mineral resources minister Damdinnyam Gongor met Russian energy ministry leadership and executives of Rosneft and Gazprom Neft in Moscow on Monday, and came away with a promise of 25,000 additional tonnes of AI-92 and 5,000 tonnes of jet fuel by 31 August. By his account, that ends the case for rationing.