$12 Billion Excluded From Kashagan Dispute as Kazakhstan Claims Continue
Key Facts
An international arbitration tribunal dismissed Kazakhstan’s $12 billion claim against the major shareholders in North Caspian Operating Company, the operator of the Kashagan field, in a ruling announced in October 2026, according to a Kursiv report citing Bloomberg. The claim concerned costs incurred by the project between 2011 and 2015, and the tribunal found it had been filed too late. The report said the tribunal rejected the claim, but did not end the arbitration proceedings between the government and the companies. It allowed other claims totaling nearly $8 billion to proceed. The government is also continuing to seek $150 billion in compensation for lost profits, keeping the broader dispute alive.
The dismissed claim concerns costs incurred over four years, from 2011 to 2015, according to the report. Kursiv quoted its source as saying the tribunal considered the claim late, without providing details on how the delay was calculated or specifying a legal deadline. The reported ruling is therefore limited to the claim related to those costs and does not describe the fate of the other claims. The claims allowed to proceed are worth about $8 billion. The claim for compensation for lost profits, valued at $150 billion, remains part of the ongoing arbitration proceedings.
Shareholders in the operating company face a dispute over a major offshore project involving Exxon Mobil, Eni, Shell and TotalEnergies, along with KazMunayGas, China National Petroleum Corporation and Inpex, according to the list of partners published by Kursiv. North Caspian Operating Company operates the field. The report says the partners invested about $55 billion to develop Kashagan. The field’s average output was about 400,000 barrels a day in 2025. That places the dismissed cost claim within a project where the partners’ investments intersect with Kazakhstan’s claims, which remain in arbitration.
In a track separate from the arbitration, a court in Astana upheld a decision in April 2026 to impose a fine of 2.356 trillion tenge on the Kashagan project over sulfur storage, according to Bloomberg. That dispute concerns an environmental fine, while the dismissed claim relates to costs incurred between 2011 and 2015. The fine case is separate from the financial claims before the arbitration tribunal. The report distinguishes the two matters by subject, while linking them to the same project. It does not say that the ruling on the $12 billion claim resolved the dispute over the fine.
On infrastructure projects, the International Finance Corporation said it plans to prepare projects in Kazakhstan worth about $3 billion in total between 2026 and 2031. The plan aims to attract private-sector investors to provide 60% of the amount, with 40% coming from the corporation’s funds, according to Kazakhstan’s Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms. These figures describe a planned project pipeline and do not represent a final funding announcement for specific projects or completed investments. The two sides discussed expanding cooperation in transport infrastructure and the water sector. They also discussed ways to attract private capital to infrastructure projects.
The advisory step linked to this plan dates to an agreement signed by Kazakhstan’s Ministry of National Economy and the World Bank Group on October 16, 2026, according to the Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms. The agreement is part of Kazakhstan’s Joint Economic Research Program. The work includes preparing public-private partnership programs and developing investment opportunities. The agency places the agreement in the context of developing a project pipeline through 2031, with the aim of involving private investors in the larger share of financing. The next announced step is therefore focused on preparing programs and opportunities, while arbitration proceedings over the Kashagan claims continue.