Via Geopolitical Futures, an article on the potential opening of a trans-Caspian corridor:

A trans-Caspian energy and trade corridor has long captured the interest of many nations that would benefit from its creation, and the war in Ukraine has made things only more urgent. The reasons it has never come to fruition are fairly obvious; ferrying hydrocarbons and other commodities from Central Asia along a route that bypasses Russian territory is a massive logistical undertaking. But the biggest obstacle is geopolitical. The nations comprising Central Asia and the South Caucasus will have to manage a litany of issues for a trans-Caspian corridor to ever take off.

Which is why some recent reports out of Central Asia are so interesting. On April 10, the presidents of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan jointly called for increased oil exports through Azerbaijan. In late March, Kazakh state-owned energy firm KazMunayGas began shipping oil from the Kashagan field, located in the Caspian Sea, to the Azerbaijani terminal of Sangachal for onward distribution via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Only a year earlier, oil from Kazakhstan’s Tengiz field was exported through the same route, in accordance with a contract between KazMunayGas and the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

A trans-Caspian corridor could involve any number of players, including countries like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which have substantial natural gas reserves. But for now, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are the essential pieces in a trans-regional energy shipment network. Both understand as much, and both are capitalizing on regional conflicts to enhance their respective positions.

Trans-Caspian Corridor Shipping Route

Azerbaijan After 2020

In late 2020, Azerbaijan retook territory it had lost to Armenia in the first Nagorno-Karabakh War during the 1990s. Buoyed by military and intelligence support from Turkey and taking advantage of Russia’s preoccupation in eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan made its move knowing it may not have a better opportunity. The bet paid off; Russia came in late, brokered a cease-fire and, in doing so, tipped the regional balance of power – which Russia had been maintaining for decades – back in Azerbaijan’s favor. A year later, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Azerbaijan was already brimming with a newfound confidence that it had greater room to maneuver in the region. The Russians quickly running into problems with their war in Ukraine only further reinforced this perception among the Azerbaijanis.

Azerbaijan’s gains could pay significant geoeconomic dividends to both Baku and Ankara. The post-2020 regional order could give Turkey a land bridge to access the energy resources in the trans-Caspian region – putting it one step closer to its goal of becoming a regional energy hub. Azerbaijan would similarly become a critical hub in the envisioned corridor. And it could do so not just because of the new military reality in the region but also because it was able to put some distance between it and Russia.

Kazakhstan After 2022

A similar situation has been taking place east of the Caspian. A month before Russia invaded Ukraine, Kazakhstan went through its own political crisis. A hike in fuel prices in early January triggered major civil unrest throughout the country, and various factions of the political elite who were jockeying for power quickly hijacked the protests. What began as peaceful demonstrations quickly descended into violence as armed gunmen attacked government facilities. In just two weeks, the government was able to bring things under control with some help from a Collective Security Treaty Organization task force composed of about 2,500 troops, most of whom were Russian.

Much has been made of the role foreign forces played in helping Astana quell the unrest, but the fact is that they were in country for a little over a week and were guarding key facilities; Kazakh forces were doing the heavy lifting. In fact, Moscow was relieved to see Kazakhstan restore order because it was drawing up plans to invade Ukraine. The last thing Russia wanted was trouble in its strategic rear as it moved ahead with a major confrontation with the West.

For the government in Astana, the war in Ukraine has been a challenge and an opportunity. Kazakhstan depends on Russia’s Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) to export oil, which is a major source of government revenue. Kazakhstan’s public rejection of Moscow’s annexation of areas in Ukraine’s Donbas region as well as its compliance with international sanctions against the Kremlin has caused Russia to periodically shut down the CPC to the Kazakhs. Astana’s need to reduce dependency on Moscow’s pipeline has been galvanized by the new environment in which otherwise uncharted options are becoming necessary.

What Lies Ahead

Russia’s struggles in Ukraine are thus changing the strategic landscapes of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Both regions now have the time and space to engage more with each other, especially economically. For the foreseeable future, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan will be the two pillars of this economic connectivity. Transportation between their ports will likely be the mainstay of the economic corridor in the making.

Several geopolitical developments will affect the corridor’s development. Russia may be under pressure, but it cannot afford to let a project like this threaten its monopoly of Eurasian trade routes. Its efforts to forge a natural gas union with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan is just one way the Kremlin could limit the extent to which Central Asian nations can go it alone. Meanwhile, Turkmenistan, strategically located and energy-rich though it may be, will take a while to transition from its largely isolationist policies. For double-landlocked Uzbekistan, a trans-Caspian corridor will, despite its challenges, be a far better option than waiting for trade access from Afghanistan, which is ruled by the Taliban, or from Pakistan, which is in the throes of an unprecedented political crisis. Elsewhere, Turkey needs to sort out its internal political and economic issues before it can mediate a durable peace in the South Caucasus, much less use it as a launchpad for building a Turkic bloc. Then there is Iran, which has problems of its own but whose interests align with Russia’s, especially in terms of their joint efforts to establish a north-south corridor. China, meanwhile, is trying to take advantage of Russia’s worries to push westward in Eurasia. Such is the strategic landscape that the United States and its allies will have to navigate as they pursue their interests of reducing international dependency on Russia.