MOSCOW/ASTANA, July 30 (Reuters) - Talks between Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday included a possible increase in Kazakh oil exports via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, the press service of the head of Kazakhstan reported.
"The delegations discussed issues of cooperation in the energy sector, including prospects for increasing exports via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline," the statement said, without providing additional details.
The agenda of Tokayev's visit to Turkey for a meeting of the two countries' high-level strategic cooperation council also included cooperation in power generation, agriculture and mining.
Kazakhstan increased oil exports via BTC in the first half of 2025 by 12% compared to the same period last year to 785,000 tons (34,000 barrels per day), according to the state statistics.
Oil is delivered to Baku by tankers via the Caspian Sea from the port of Aktau, which would need upgrading to increase export levels. Also, oil exports via BTC are limited by the quality requirements for Kazakh crude to join the pipeline.
Kazakhstan in its development plan until 2029 considered the possibility of building a trans-Caspian oil pipeline and marine terminals on the Kazakh and Azerbaijani coasts of the Caspian Sea.
Kazakhstan, whose main income comes from oil exports, is the world's biggest landlocked country, and the two main routes for exporting its oil to international markets pass through the Russia to its Black Sea and Baltic ports.
Exports of Kazakh oil circumventing Russian ports made up just 5.9% of the total exported volume of 32.6 million tonnes in the first 6 months of 2025 and this share remained unchanged from 2024, according to state statistics.
In 2022, President Tokayev called for an increase of oil exports bypassing Russia. Following this, Kazmunaigaz and Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR concluded an agreement, envisaging the transport of 1.5 million tonnes of oil per year from the Tengiz oil field to the BTC.
Reporting by Tamara Vaal, additional reporting by Fyodor Dmitrenko; Editing by Kim Coghill
Source: Reuters