ABSTRACT
The Republic of Kazakhstan is a major gateway for renewed global ambitions in the energy-rich Caspian Basin. In the early-1990s, the government endorsed a plan to privatize its energy sector, and, in the following years, Kazakhstan’s hydrocarbon reserves, altogether much smaller and entailing more costly recovery than many of those in the Persian Gulf, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, attracted a respectful amount of foreign capital investment of approximately $18 billion. From 1999, crude production grew in Kazakhstan by about 15 per cent every year, reaching a net export of 1 mb/d in 2004. The oil output is likely to expand signifi cantly in the future – by 2010 the country is forecasted to become one of the 10 largest crude oil exporters in the world.1 This transformation from a designated ‘bread basket’ within the Soviet division of labour into an important player on the world’s hydrocarbon market, impressive in its own terms, at the same time presents serious challenges to the country.2
