Nothing in here to answer your question re nationalization in Kazakhstan, but it may be of interest. From Stratfor today:
The final Central Asian state, Kazakhstan, is the most important of the lot -- and it certainly has the most players mucking around in its business. Kazakhstan shares a massive border with both China and Russia, who are battling for control of the country's energy export routes, and boasts more energy reserves than all the other four 'Stans combined. The majority of these reserves are being developed by Western consortia. Kazakhstan also has received more foreign direct investment than any other former Soviet state, Russia included.
In general, Kazakhstan is the only state in the region that the West pays attention to. Fourteen years after independence, Kazakhstan is now exporting more than a million barrels of oil per day because of Western investments -- a figure that Astana hopes to triple in the next 10 years. Chances for a messy secession battle are less in Kazakhstan because President Nursultan Nazarbayev has not made it a policy to kill all those with whom he does not agree.
But that does not mean the process will be tidy (or that Nazarbayev is a particularly nice man). Kazakhstan's biggest problem is its geography. The country is roughly three-quarters the size of the United States but has a population of only 15 million people. And there are no natural barriers separating it from Russia or China. Even if Nazarbayev or his successors do everything perfectly, this is a country that is impossible to rule without the express permission of one's larger neighbors. Should either Beijing or Moscow decide to make a concerted attempt to control Kazakhstan's mineral wealth, no one could stand in the way -- except, possibly, the other. |
