Last month, Kazakhstan scrapped its deal with Shell and Eni to build a gas processing plant at the Karachaganak field and hired China’s CITIC Construction instead.
The Ukrainian campaign against Russian oil infrastructure is accelerating Kazakhstan’s shift away from Moscow.
On 6 April, Russia’s defense ministry said Ukrainian drones struck the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s (CPC) Black Sea terminal—setting four storage tanks ablaze and damaging a mooring and loading infrastructure, the Moscow Times reported—while Ukraine said it hit the nearby Sheskharis terminal and did not claim the CPC.
The two events are connected: the Ukrainian campaign against Russian oil infrastructure is accelerating Kazakhstan’s shift away from Moscow, and the winner so far is Beijing.
Kazakhstan is forced to find alternatives. Those alternatives keep pointing east.
The pipeline Ukraine keeps striking carries 80% of Kazakhstan’s crude exports. Chevron and ExxonMobil are among its shareholders; US media reported that Washington asked Ukraine to stop targeting American interests at the port after the November 2025 strikes.
Ukraine kept striking. Each time it does, Kazakhstan is forced to find alternatives. Those alternatives keep pointing east.
The pipeline that keeps getting hit
A series of naval drone attacks in November 2025 struck the CPC terminal at Novorossiysk, forcing Kazakhstan to reroute Kashagan crude to China for the first time in the field’s history.
CPC exports fell roughly 45% from planned volumes in January 2026.
Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry called it “the third act of aggression” against a civilian facility; Ukraine responded that its forces work to “systematically weaken the aggressor’s military-industrial potential.” CPC exports fell roughly 45% from planned volumes in January 2026—in part because only one of three offshore loading moorings remained operable.
China steps in
Shell and Eni had been shareholders in the Karachaganak field, contracted to upgrade the infrastructure through which the field’s gas currently travels to Russia’s Orenburg facility for processing. Kazakhstan wants to process on its own soil. It scrapped the Western firms after significant cost overruns and disputes over terms.
The replacement operator: QazaqGaz, the national energy company. The construction partner: China’s CITIC Construction.
Shell and Eni were pushed out. A Chinese state-linked construction firm stepped in.
Shell and Eni were pushed out. A Chinese state-linked construction firm stepped in. The gas Kazakhstan currently sends to Russia for processing will now stay in Kazakhstan in a plant that a Chinese company is building.
Analyst Randall Schmollinger has argued in Euromaidan Press that China has already replaced Russia as the primary energy buyer across the region—a shift Chinese-financed pipelines and construction contracts are now making structural.
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The Middle Corridor scramble
Kazakhstan is also moving west through a route that bypasses Russia entirely.
On 7 April, Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister Ermek Köşerbaev visited Tbilisi to sign a cooperation program with Georgia, calling it “a key link” in the Europe–Asia transport architecture.
The next day in Baku, he met Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev alongside Kazakhstan’s transport minister. Aliyev described the Azerbaijan–Georgia corridor as “our main transport artery.”
The World Bank has projected a 28% increase in trade between the corridor countries and the EU by 2030.
The route is growing: 85 Trans-Caspian trains ran in the first quarter of 2026, up 150% year-on-year. The World Bank has projected a 28% increase in trade between the corridor countries and the EU by 2030, provided coordination and investment follow through. The corridor still moves a fraction of the volumes Chinese pipelines carry eastward.
Ukrainian drones doing Beijing’s work
Ukraine’s campaign has a coherent logic: starve Russia’s war machine of export revenue. The CPC strikes are working in that narrow sense. Each disruption also forces Kazakhstan to build infrastructure that reduces Russian leverage—and so far, Chinese companies are the ones building it.
Central Asia is “a component of China’s longstanding efforts to plan against dependency on Gulf energy.”
Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center and former State Department energy adviser, told Forbes that Central Asia is “a component of China’s longstanding efforts to plan against dependency on Gulf energy.” Ukraine’s drones are inadvertently doing part of Beijing’s work for it.
