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Mongolia queues for petrol two weeks before COP17
AI-92 stocks fell by nearly half in three weeks to 17 days of consumption, queues at the pumps run five and six hours, and the government’s answer is measured in storage tanks and years.
Pashinyan is reappointed the day his government resigns
Armenia’s new National Assembly convened on Sunday morning; the same day the government resigned by force of the constitution and President Vahagn Khachaturyan signed Nikol Pashinyan back in.
A declaration at the lake, and a refinery on the table
Six presidents signed the Cholpon-Ata Declaration on Friday, and Tajikistan used the occasion to propose a regional refinery - an idea that the region's fuel squeeze has increasingly reinforced.
Chevron speaks first on the CPC
The fullest account of the damaged export route came from Houston on Friday: the pipeline is flowing, two of three moorings are working, and Washington and Astana are discussing guarantees to keep it that way.
Ulaanbaatar brings dust storms to the COP17 table
Mongolia and UNESCAP will launch a regional initiative on sand and dust storms at COP17 in August, built with the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat of China, Japan and South Korea.
A cable starts across the Caspian floor
Laying of the Kazakhstan-Azerbaijan fibre-optic cable began on Friday from Baku toward Aktau, Kazakhstan’s digital development ministry said, with 15 to 20 days of marine work ahead and commissioning promised by the end of the year.
Bishkek signs its second alliance in two days
Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan signed a Treaty on Allied Relations at Cholpon-Ata on Friday morning, a day after Bishkek concluded a treaty of the same rank with Tashkent. Two alliances in two days make the lakeshore summit a working one.
The CPC’s reprieve lasts three days
Drones struck two tankers serving the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s Black Sea terminal early on Thursday, and the consortium stopped loading for the second time in 10 days. The route carries more than 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil exports.
The western workaround acquires statistics at Batumi
Batumi port moved more than 4 million tonnes in the first half of 2026, up 8%, its press service said on 30 July. The port and its oil terminal are run by KazTransOil’s Georgian subsidiary, which makes the figure a Kazakh number as much as a Georgian one.
Bishkek and Tashkent sign an alliance as the summit gathers
Sadyr Japarov and Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a Treaty on Allied Relations at Cholpon-Ata on 30 July and agreed to create a Supreme Interstate Council. By nightfall Emomali Rahmon and Ilham Aliyev had landed in Kyrgyzstan for the Central Asia-Azerbaijan summit.
The ADB puts $250 million into the road around Tbilisi
The Asian Development Bank approved a $250 million loan on 30 July for an 18.9-kilometre four-lane bypass of the Georgian capital, framing it as freight relief on the corridor that links Central Asia to Europe.
Ulaanbaatar counts 4,127 delegates, and rations its traffic
Registration for the UN desertification conference COP17 reached 4,127 delegates, the state agency MONTSAME reported on 29 July, against the more than 2,000 it reported days earlier. The capital will run even-odd licence-plate restrictions from 15 August to 12 September.
The region’s diplomacy moves to a Kyrgyz lakeshore
Shavkat Mirziyoyev departed for Kyrgyzstan on Thursday morning on a state visit that runs into a Central Asia-Azerbaijan summit at Cholpon-Ata from 30 July to 1 August. Ilham Aliyev arrives on a state visit of his own.
Washington picks up the phone on the CPC
Kazakhstan’s foreign minister Yermek Kosherbayev and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the crisis around the Caspian Pipeline Consortium by phone on 29 July. No earlier cabinet-level American engagement with the route’s security has surfaced in the wires since the drone attacks began on 17 July.
Kazakhstan’s oil export duty falls 23% for August
Kazakhstan will levy $76 on each tonne of exported crude and light products in August, down from $99 in July, as its price-linked duty formula tracks a weaker oil price. The cut lands on volumes already thinned by the closure of the CPC route, so the state’s oil take shrinks on rate and quantity at once.
A tungsten mine for a million tonnes of ore a year
Patokh Shodiev and Mukadaskhan Ibragimova, with a Chinese partner, will develop the Bayan tungsten deposit in North Kazakhstan region. Peak output is put at 1 million tonnes of ore a year, and the first year at 2,820 tonnes.
Kabul turns to its northern door
The Taliban economic commission approved expanding trade through Sher Khan Port with Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and China, and told the public works ministry to build the Afghan section of an ECO rail corridor.
Dushanbe opens two Chinese generation tracks in one day
Tajikistan’s energy minister met China Energy about a 200 MW solar plant in the north and China Gezhouba about two hydropower plants on the Zarafshan, both on Tuesday.
Moscow answers Yerevan through its foreign intelligence service
A day after Pashinyan asked Putin to lift the export restrictions, the Kremlin briefing dealt with an EU referendum and the Foreign Intelligence Service issued four statements on what leaving the Eurasian Economic Union would cost Armenia.
Bishkek petrol runs up to 8.5 som over the state cap
The ceiling for AI-92 is 79.9 som a litre. Five Bishkek networks were selling it between 84.9 and 88.4 on Tuesday. The state’s answer that afternoon was a voluntary agreement with the traders