22 October: what changed for Kazakhstan

Graphic: a map pin and the words Kazakhstan — VRK News graphic. AI-generated

Thursday, 22 October, began with investment and ended with news of an arbitration ruling. In the morning documents worth $4.8bn were signed at the KGIR-2026 round table in Shymkent, and in the evening Bloomberg reported that an international tribunal had rejected $12bn of Kazakhstan's $20bn claim against the Kashagan shareholders. In between, construction began on the country's first ethane and propane pipelines, KMG and CNPC took decisions on oil pipelines for the Shymkent refinery, the Affordable Internet national project was cut by a third, and the state housing queue was audited, which may remove more than 200,000 people from it.

Below is what follows from this and what to watch in the coming weeks.

Oil and gas: losing on timing, building new pipes

The day's main industry news did not come from Astana. An international tribunal, according to Bloomberg, found that the government had challenged $12bn of the NCOC consortium's 2011–2015 spending too late, leaving about $8bn in dispute. Kazakhstan wanted these costs declared non-recoverable, that is, to prevent investors covering them with the project's oil. The cost dispute is only part of a closed proceeding in which the country's claims against Eni, Shell, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies and other members exceed $150bn, about $138bn of it for profits lost through delayed production. The ruling has not been published and there is no official comment from the government.

Onshore, the industry moved the other way the same day. Near Atyrau, KMG PetroChem made the first weld on ethane and propane pipelines from the Gas Separation Complex at Tengiz to the gas chemical plants at Karabatan: 210 km each, 1.6m tonnes of ethane and 1.1m tonnes of propane a year, entry into service at the end of 2028. KazMunayGas and CNPC decided to design the expansion of the Kenkiyak–Atyrau pipeline to 15m tonnes and Kenkiyak–Kumkol to 20m tonnes to supply the Shymkent refinery, which is to grow from 6m to 12m tonnes by 2030. The Energy Ministry showed how by 2028 it will track 80% of oil and fuel turnover from well to filling station, and a day earlier had described the Digital TsKRR system for online approval of oil and gas projects.

Note. Kashagan is developed under a production sharing agreement: investors first recover their costs from the oil produced and then share profit oil with the state. A dispute over which costs to recognise is therefore a dispute over how much oil the state gets.

Investment: memoranda versus agreements

In Shymkent, KGIR-2026 saw 22 documents worth $4.8bn signed. Only three are binding investment agreements, worth $1.13bn: a 1,000 MW wind farm in Kostanai region, a road monitoring system and a glass container plant in Aktobe. The rest are memoranda, including a $1bn terminal at the port of Kuryk with China's Guoyou Materials Group. Through the QaJET platform the country hopes to attract €18bn into green energy; the official launch is at COP31 in November.

In the evening in Bern, Kazakhstan and Switzerland signed a roadmap on cooperation between the National Nuclear Centre and NAGRA, a cooperative that deals with disposal of radioactive waste, and the Swiss side proposed a memorandum on critical raw materials. Trade between the two countries over eight months rose by 19.3% to $1.12bn. Investor interest also bypassed the subsoil: the Energy Ministry pulled 20 hydrocarbon plots from auction after receiving no bids for them, while in Kyzylorda Orda Power began building a 5 MW solar plant with energy storage for 18 billion tenge.

Digital: less money for internet, more use of data

The government is cutting the Affordable Internet national project from 1.5trn to 998.6bn tenge; only 391 villages are connected so far, 2,131 should be by the end of 2026, and in 2027 Amazon LEO and SpaceSail will enter the satellite internet market. Patients can now register with a clinic through Kaspi.kz. The Bureau of National Statistics said it already calculates inflation using till receipts and plans to count tourists with mobile operators' data. The Ministry of Culture and Information proposed requiring those who raise money on social media for personal needs to report on spending on a single digital resource.

The till receipt, which used to prove a purchase, now proves inflation too.

What these stories have in common is that the state is moving from collecting paperwork to working with ready-made data from receipts, banking apps and payment systems. The open question is who will be responsible for the accuracy of these data and how citizens will be able to check and correct them.

Housing: the queue audit

Otbasy Bank, which has gained the right to check applicants without their consent, may remove or suspend more than 200,000 of the more than a million people in the state housing queue; among them is a person with shares in 400 flats. Removal itself has not yet begun. From 31 October the same bank raises its fee cap on large loans.

What next

Coming dates: on 23 October the National Bank announces its base rate decision; on 28 October President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev delivers his address to the nation; on 30 October special procurement rules for the nuclear plant take effect — on 22 October the President ordered nuclear power development to be kept under special control; on 31 October Otbasy Bank's fees change; on 1 November the first stage of QazETA begins; on 18 November and 25 December subsoil plot auctions are held. On Kashagan, watch for the government's official position and news of the remaining $8bn.

List of sources used

Artificial intelligence was used in preparing this material.

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