The stagnation pervading Central Asia’s oil industry could be alleviated by a couple of big announcements in the coming months, on the Kashagan and Tengiz fields. But industry veterans are more heedful of the numerous obstacles presented by the region, from the geological to the bureaucratic, and an unpromising global context. Home to some of the world’s largest oil and gas fields, ex-Soviet Central Asia and particularly Kazakhstan was once an exciting frontier for the industry. But of late Kazakh oil production has stagnated at around 1.7 million barrels per day, partly because of a decade of delay starting output from the giant Kashagan project.
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