North Caspian

Commentary

The North Caspian retains significant potential, but the government's multibillion-dollar claims against the Kashagan and Karachaganak consortia and repeated disruption of CPC exports by drone strikes have raised contractual and export risk. Outlook: Uncertain.

Updated

October 3, 2026

Location

Description

The North Caspian basin is a petroleum-rich pericratonic depression in Kazakhstan and Russia, covering c.500,000sq km. It occupies the shallow northern portion of the Caspian Sea and a large plain to the north of the sea between the Volga and Ural Rivers, and farther east to the Mugodzhary Highland, the southern continuation of the Ural foldbelt. The Basin is bounded by the Palaeozoic carbonate platform of the Volga-Ural province to the north and west, and by the Ural, South Emba and Karpinsky Hercynian foldbelts to the east and south. It originated by pre-Late Devonian rifting and subsequent spreading that opened oceanic crust, though the precise timing is not known. The sedimentary succession is more than 20km thick in the centre and is divided by a thick, strongly diapiric Kungurian (Lower Permian) salt into subsalt and suprasalt sequences. Most reserves are in isolated Devonian–Carboniferous subsalt carbonate platforms forming the supergiant Tengiz, Kashagan (discovered 2000), Karachaganak and Astrakhan fields, with smaller accumulations in Jurassic–Cretaceous suprasalt clastics around salt domes.

Summary

Despite the long history of exploration in the North Caspian, major growth projects continue. Tengizchevroil started the US$46.7bn Future Growth Project at Tengiz in January 2025, adding c. 260,000 b/d and lifting the field towards c. 1mm boe/d. Kashagan and Karachaganak also continue to expand, and the USGS expects most undiscovered resources in Palaeozoic subsalt carbonates.