During the meetings held between the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the issue of increasing Kazakh oil exports via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline was discussed.
The Kazakhstan Presidential Press Service stated that the meeting addressed the possibility of increasing energy cooperation and exports via the BTC pipeline.During Tokayev’s visit to Turkey, cooperation in the fields of energy production, agriculture, and mining was discussed within the framework of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council meeting between the two countries.
In the first half of 2025, Kazakhstan increased its oil exports via the BTC pipeline by 12 percent to 785,000 tons (approximately 34,000 barrels per day). The oil is transported from Aktau Port to Baku via tankers across the Caspian Sea.
However, it is stated that the Aktau Port needs to be modernized in order to increase export levels. Furthermore, the quality standards of the BTC pipeline are limiting the integration of Kazakh oil.Kazakhstan’s 2029 development plan also considers the construction of marine terminals on both sides of the Caspian Sea and the Trans-Caspian pipeline.
Kazakhstan, the world’s largest landlocked country, relies primarily on oil exports for its main source of income. Currently, most of its oil exports are routed through Russia to Black Sea and Baltic ports. However, in the first half of 2025, shipments bypassing Russian ports accounted for only 5.9% of the total 32.6 million tons of exports.
In a statement made in 2022, Tokayev emphasized the need to develop new routes to bypass Russia for oil exports. In line with this, an agreement was signed between Kazakhstan’s national energy company Kazmunaigaz and Azerbaijan’s SOCAR for the transportation of 1.5 million tons of oil annually. This oil is transported from the Tengiz field to the BTC pipeline.
