On Thursday, November 5, Kazakhstan said a lot of figures out loud and stayed silent on several important things. The commission auditing the Defence Ministry named the number of criminal cases but not their content. The National Bank laid out National Fund withdrawals four years ahead. The Energy Minister explained why oil fell short and admitted that growth in exports through BTC depends on Azerbaijan’s consent and the quality of the oil.
The day of November 5
- 104
sites inspected by the commission at the Defence Ministry - 37
cases with the bodies of criminal prosecution - 4.3 trillion tenge
withdrawal from the National Fund in 2026 - 67 billion dollars
National Fund assets - 101 million tonnes
oil output without attacks on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), per the minister - 79 million tonnes
expected oil exports in 2027
Based on the review’s materials
- 104
Cases without content
The Security Council presented interim results of the Defence Ministry audit: more than 104 sites covered, 37 cases with the bodies of criminal prosecution, work to finish in November. What these cases are about, in which units they arose and whether they are linked to the deaths of servicemen on the Caspian is not in the statement. The Security Council cited the interests of the investigation.
Next to it lies a case of another kind. In the case over the deaths of fourteen servicemen during exercises in the Mangystau region on September 24, the Prosecutor General’s Office reported eight officials in custody, 300 people questioned and thirty examinations, and said the investigation is planned to end soon. The two tracks are best kept apart: one leads to a trial of specific people, the other is supposed to give a picture of the state of the army. Only the second has no outline yet.
A savings pot with arithmetic
The National Bank, by contrast, laid out its calculation in full. Batur Vakhidov, director of the National Bank’s monetary operations department, named the withdrawal schedule: 4.3 trillion tenge this year, 3.93 trillion next year and 3.6 trillion each in 2028 and 2029. He then set it against what the fund earns: with assets of about 67 billion dollars and an expected return of about 6.5% that is roughly 4.2 billion dollars a year, and the oil sector adds another 4–5 billion. The sum, 8.2–9.2 billion, is comparable to the withdrawals, which Vakhidov put at roughly 8 billion dollars. Hence his conclusion: there will be no “eating up”.
The calculation is honest, but it has a single prop: oil. Vakhidov himself noted that if the price falls sharply the savings part would have to be touched too. National Bank Chairman Timur Suleimenov defended another thesis: oil money cannot be saved in full, or taxes on the rest of the economy would have to rise; that is why the guaranteed transfer has operated since the late 2000s. He also recalled the size of the economy: this year’s gross domestic product (GDP), 180–190 trillion tenge, is more than forty times a year’s withdrawal, so the same nominal sum means less and less to the economy. On the investment partnership there is a separate silence: the fund’s money, Suleimenov said, will be invested by international asset managers, but which ones and into which projects is not named, and a profit cannot be guaranteed, as Vakhidov admitted.
The same day the National Bank took a quieter decision too: it postponed the debt-burden ratio for car loans by a year and for housing savings by two.
Oil, and a pipe that does not decide
Energy Minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov supplied two missing figures. First, the earlier 2026 output benchmark, 101 million tonnes, would, he said, have been met but for drone attacks on the CPC; the current plan is 96 million, as we wrote the day before. Second, exports in 2027 are expected at 79 million tonnes.
The second part of the conversation concerned BTC. The Ministry of Energy plans 1.7 million tonnes for 2027 against about 1.6 million expected this year. The minister would like 2.2 million, but the decision lies with Azerbaijan, which is worried about the effect of oil quality on the blend in the pipe. In other words, what will decide is not only volume but also the quality of the oil. For comparison, the CPC carries tens of millions of tonnes a year, while BTC carried 1.2 million tonnes in 2025, according to Report.
What will be confirmed first
The nearest deadline was set by the commission itself: November. By then it will be clear whether the 37 cases turn into public charges and whether they touch anything besides the Caspian. The National Bank’s calculation rests on the oil price, and Vakhidov himself noted that a sharp fall would require touching the fund’s savings part too. So two things are worth watching: November, when the commission finishes, and the oil price, which will determine the National Fund’s safety margin.
