Kazakhstan plans to increase crude oil shipments through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, expanding an export route that moves Kazakh oil across the Caspian Sea and through Azerbaijan.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced the plan on October 15 during the seventh summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia in Baku. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan intend to raise the volume jointly, he said, but did not specify a new target or timetable. Kazinform reported the remarks.
Shipments Rise 24%
Kazakhstan shipped 1.164 million metric tons of oil toward the BTC system in January-September 2026, 24% more than a year earlier, according to KazTransOil data reported by Interfax-Kazakhstan.
The oil is loaded at the Kazakh port of Aktau, carried by tanker to Baku and then fed into the BTC pipeline. A five-year agreement signed by KazMunayGas and SOCAR in November 2022 provides for transporting as much as 1.5 million tons of Kazakh oil annually along the route.
Total oil transportation through BTC reached 16.75 million tons in January-August 2026, down 8.8% from a year earlier, according to Azerbaijan’s State Statistics Committee. Transit oil from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, however, rose 4.9% to 3.029 million tons, accounting for 18.1% of the pipeline’s total flow. Interfax reported the official figures.
A Wider Caspian Energy Link
Tokayev also linked the oil agenda to the Caspian green-energy corridor being developed by Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. The project is intended to carry electricity from Central Asia through the South Caucasus toward European markets.
Higher Kazakh volumes would reinforce Azerbaijan’s role as a transit hub for Central Asian energy, although the commercial terms of the proposed expansion have not yet been disclosed.
Source: Vesti Baku