Kazakh oil: Tengiz and Kashagan

The Tengiz field in Atyrau Region was discovered in 1979. Tengizchevroil, the joint venture created by Kazakhstan and Chevron in 1993, was the newly independent country's first major foreign investment project.

Kashagan, discovered in the northern Caspian in 2000, is among the largest oil discoveries in the world in recent decades. Shallow water, winter ice, high pressure and sour gas made it very hard to develop; commercial production began in 2013.

Most Kazakh oil is exported through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) line from Tengiz to the Russian port of Novorossiysk, while some crosses the Caspian to reach world markets via the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline.