How do Russia and China Impact Kazakhstan’s Oil and Gas Industry?

Abstract

Energy at all times has been an imperative no nation could ignore. Energy moves economic engines, interferes in politics, causes wars and makes peace, and most certainly its abundance helps state-actors to attain valuable political and economic levers over entire nations. Kazakhstan, with all its energy riches, has been increasingly becoming the crossroads of interest of the world’s major powers, and while many of them have significant interests in the country’s oil and gas markets, Russia and China remain the primary contenders. As such, this paper studies the oil and gas industry in Kazakhstan in the framework of Russian and Chinese national oil and gas corporations’ involvement in it. Specifically, this research aims to investigate the extent of impact that both powers exert over Kazakhstan’s energy economy and policymaking. Due to the novelty of the topic, this paper aims to contribute to the existing literature by drawing a richer and more visible picture of the current state of energy affairs between Kazakhstan, China and Russia.