分析 -受烏克蘭戰爭所震驚，俄羅斯鄰國哈薩克斯坦向西望

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Analysis-Shocked by Ukraine war, Russian neighbour Kazakhstan looks west

Thu, November 17, 2022 at 9:10 p.m.

By Olzhas Auyezov

ALMATY (Reuters) - There is little doubt that Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will extend his rule over Kazakhstan by seven years in presidential elections on Sunday. What is less clear is how the former diplomat can reduce his resource-rich country's dependence on Russia without alienating it.

Tokayev – who opinion polls predict will comfortably win reelection at the weekend - has pushed back publicly against territorial claims made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, souring relations between the former Soviet republic and Moscow.

Russia and Kazakhstan share the world's longest continuous land border, prompting concern among some Kazakhs about the security of a country with the second-biggest ethnic Russian population among ex-Soviet republics after Ukraine.

At a forum in St. Petersburg in June where Tokayev shared the stage with Putin, he said his government did not recognize Russian-controlled regions in eastern Ukraine and that Kazakhstan upheld the inviolability of internationally recognized borders.

His blunt remarks took observers by surprise and prompted angry threats from some pro-war commentators in Russian media. And last month, when Tokayev hosted a summit of Central Asia presidents, he held face-to-face meetings with other leaders but no bilateral talks with Putin, amid a cooling in relations.

The 69-year-old Tokayev took office in 2019 after Kazakhstan's previous president resigned amid protests. After surviving unrest in January triggered by fuel price rises, Tokayev unveiled reforms - including constitutional amendments and a hike in the minimum wage - and called snap elections.

Amid popular demand for sweeping change, he has recently accelerated plans to increase the amount of Kazakh oil exported west across the Caspian Sea, avoiding Russia to the north.

Kazakhstan currently relies heavily on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), one of the world's largest pipelines that crosses Russia to the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. Out of total exports of 68 million tonnes a year, 53 million tonnes of Kazakh oil move through it.

While there is nothing to replace that volume, a push announced last week to increase trans-Caspian shipments tenfold in the coming years, to 20 million tonnes, was the clearest sign yet of a move by Tokayev's government to limit economic reliance on Russia.

"We have developed a roadmap to diversify (oil) exports," Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov told reporters. "Work is underway to expand and increase oil export capabilities in all directions."

But meeting that target will not be easy. The chief executive of Kazakhstan's state oil firm KazMunayGaz said this week that the target of 20 million tonnes was a "medium-term" aim.

"Comparing something that is good, cheap, and works (CPC) with something new, unknown, and more expensive: this is not an easy decision to make from the economic point of view," Magzum Mirzagaliyev said.

Kazakhstan's presidency and Russia's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story. A spokesman for Tokayev said in July that Russia remained a strategic partner and that plans to diversify energy supply routes were not driven by politics.

CAPACITY PROBLEMS

The main alternative route to the CPC is the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which originates in Azerbaijan on the opposite side of the Caspian to Kazakhstan. From Baku, oil can also travel by pipeline to the Black Sea port of Supsa in Georgia and from there onto world markets.

But getting Kazakh oil to Baku requires either tanker shipments across the sea or the construction of a trans-Caspian pipeline. The existing fleet is modest, and pipeline talks between the sea's littoral states have stalled for decades over territorial disputes.

Both options would be needed to reach the 20 million tonne target as Kazakh ports on the Caspian lack the necessary capacity and there is no tanker fleet in place to move such volumes.

Smailov said last week that Kazakhstan would start by sending an additional 1.5 million tonnes a year via BTC starting from 2023, gradually rising to 6-6.5 million tonnes.

He did not detail how the target would be reached. Kazakhstan's Aktau port, the only one equipped to load oil tankers, can handle up to 5.5 million tonnes. Another port, Kuryk, can be used to load train ferries carrying oil.

Smailov said Kazakhstan's biggest oil producer, Chevron-led Tengizchevroil, had doubled its railcar fleet to move crude to Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi, which is owned by Kazakhstan and can be reached via Russia or the Caspian.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Three traders said the Kazakh unit of France's TotalEnergies had started regular shipments via BTC since September, taking a hit to profits in favour of stability. TotalEnergies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tokayev has also called for oil storage facilities to be built on the Caspian coast, which would prevent pipeline disruptions from immediately affecting production.

To the east, a pipeline running from Kazakhstan to China is currently used to transport about 10 million tonnes of Russian crude a year, roughly half of its capacity, plus some 2 million tonnes of Kazakh crude.

Kazakhstan's ability to fill that pipeline is limited by demand on the Chinese side and pricing, which is reviewed annually.

NEW CONFIDENCE

Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Central Asia's five former Soviet republics have increasingly been standing up to Moscow, aware of their new-found leverage as Russia looks to their markets and trade routes in a bid to circumvent Western sanctions.

One senior government official said a resounding election win for Tokayev could embolden him to further distance himself from Russia.

The official, who declined to be named to discuss sensitive political issues, said Tokayev wants to prove he can lead his country of 20 million people without a patron, after he split from his long-serving predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev in January following the unrest over fuel price increases that escalated into an attempted coup.

Putin backed Tokayev and a Russia-led military bloc sent troops to Kazakhstan at a time when the Kazakh leader could not fully trust his own security forces, prompting criticism that he would now be in Moscow's debt.

His actions since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February suggest otherwise.

Kazakhstan has called for peace and refused to recognize referendums by which Russia claimed to have annexed some Ukrainian regions - votes derided as a sham by Ukraine and the West.

Even before the war, the official said Kazakhstan had resisted a push by Moscow in 2020 for a single currency and joint parliament within the post-Soviet Eurasian Economic Union, as part of a five-year strategic plan.

The official said Kazakhstan's government was reassessing its relations with Russia, although the giant neighbour still has significant leverage.

The CPC has suffered more disruptions this year than at any other time, forcing Kazakhstan to trim its 2022 oil production and exports in a setback to state finances.

The pipeline twice reported damage to mooring points, limiting throughput, and a Russian court also sought to suspend the pipeline's operations, citing spill concerns.

(Additional reporting by Tamara Vaal in Astana; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Daniel Flynn)

Translation 

阿拉木圖（路透社）- 毫無疑問，Kassym-Jomart Tokayev 在周日举行的總統選舉將延長他對哈薩克斯坦統治7 年。不太清楚的是，這位前外交官如何能夠減少他的資源豐富國家對俄羅斯的依賴, 而不令它感到憤恨沮喪。

Tokayev - 民意調查預測他將在周末輕鬆贏得連任 - 公開反對俄羅斯總統普京在烏克蘭提出的領土要求，使這前蘇聯共和國與莫斯科之間的關係惡化。

俄羅斯和哈薩克斯坦擁有世界上最長的連續陸地邊界，這引發了一些哈薩克人對他們在前蘇聯共和國中, 僅次於烏克蘭擁有俄羅斯族人口第二多的安全擔憂。

6 月在聖彼得堡舉行的一次論壇上，Tokayev與普京同台發言，他說他的政府不承認俄羅斯在烏克蘭東部控制的地區，哈薩克斯坦維護國際公認邊界的不可侵犯性。

他直言不諱的言論令觀察家感到意外，並引發了俄羅斯媒體中一些支持戰爭的評論員的憤怒威嚇。上個月，當Tokayev主持中亞總統峰會時，他與其他領導人舉行了面對面會談，但沒有與普京舉行雙邊會談,關係正在冷却。

69 歲的Tokayev於 2019 年在哈薩克斯坦前總統在抗議中辭職後繼任。在經歷了 1 月份燃料價格上漲引發的動蕩之後，Tokayev公佈了改革措施 - 包括修正憲法和提高最低工資 - 並宣布提前舉行選舉。

在普遍要求徹底改變的情況下，他最近加快了增加哈薩克斯坦向西穿越裏海的石油出口量的計劃，避開了北部的俄羅斯。

哈薩克斯坦目前嚴重依賴 Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC)，這是世界上最大的管道之一，穿過俄羅斯通往黑海新羅西斯克港。在每年 6,800 萬噸的總出口量中，有 5,300 萬噸哈薩克斯坦石油通過它.

雖然沒有什麼可以取代這一數量，但上周哈薩克斯坦宣佈在未來幾年將跨裏海運輸量增加十倍，達到 2000 萬噸，這是Tokayev政府採取行動收窄對俄羅斯的經濟依賴的最明顯跡象。

總理 Alikhan Smailov 告訴記者： “我們已經制定了使（石油）出口多樣化的路線圖。正在努力擴大和提高各個方向的石油出口能力。”

但實現這一目標並非易事。哈薩克斯坦國有石油公司 KazMunayGaz 首席執行官本週表示，2,000 萬噸的目標是 “中期” 目標。

Magzum Mirzagaliyev 說： “將好的、便宜的、有效的（CPC）的東西與新的、未知的、更昂貴的東西進行比較：從經濟的角度來看，這不是一個容易做出的決定。”

哈薩克斯坦總統和俄羅斯外交部沒有立即回應對此事發表評論的請求。Tokayev的發言人在 7 月表示，俄羅斯仍然是戰略夥伴，能源供應路線多元化的計劃不是由政治驅動。

容量問題

CPC 的主要替代路線是巴庫-第比利斯-傑伊漢 (BTC) 管道，它起源於裏海對面的阿塞拜疆到哈薩克斯坦。從巴庫，石油也可以通過管道輸送到黑海港口蘇普薩格魯吉亞並從那裡進入世界市場。

但將哈薩克斯坦的石油運往巴庫需要油輪跨海運輸或建設跨裏海管道。現有船隊規模不大，沿海國家之間的管道談判因領土爭端而停滯數十年。

由於裏海的哈薩克斯坦港口缺乏必要的能力，而且沒有油輪船隊來運送如此大的數量，這兩種選擇都需要能達到 2,000 萬噸的目標。

Smailov 上週表示，哈薩克斯坦將從 2023 年開始通過 BTC 每年額外發送 150 萬噸，逐漸增加到 600-650 萬噸。

他沒有詳細說明目標是如何去實現的。哈薩克斯坦的阿克套港是唯一一個配備油輪裝載能力的港口，可處理多達550萬噸的貨物。另一個港口库里克可用于裝載運送石油的火車渡輪。

Smailov 說，哈薩克斯坦最大的石油生產商，雪佛龍公司領導的 Tengizchevroil，已將其鐵路車隊增加一倍，將原油運往格魯吉亞的黑海港口巴統，該港口歸哈薩克斯坦所有，可以通過俄羅斯或裏海到達。

該公司沒有立即回應置評請求。

三位交易員表示，法國 TotalEnergies 的哈薩克斯坦分公司自 9 月以來已開始通過 BTC 管道定期發貨，接受利潤打擊以換取穩定。 TotalEnergies 沒有立即回應置評請求。

Tokayev 還呼籲在裏海沿岸建造儲油設施，以防止管道中斷會立即影響生產。

在東部，一條從哈薩克斯坦到中國的管道目前每年用於運輸約 1,000 萬噸俄羅斯原油，大約是其產能的一半，另加有約 200 萬噸哈薩克斯坦原油。

哈薩克斯坦去注滿該管道的能力受到中方需求和每年審查的定價的限制。

新的信心

自烏克蘭戰爭爆發後，中亞的五個前蘇聯加盟共和國意識到他們新發現的影響力, 越來越多地反對莫斯科，因為俄羅斯正在盯着他們的市場和貿易路線以規避西方制裁。

一位高級政府官員表示，Tokayev 在選舉中大獲全勝可能會鼓勵他進一步遠離俄羅斯。

這位拒絕透露姓名以討論敏感政治問題的官員表示，此前因燃料價格上漲不滿而演变成為意圖政變後, Tokayev與長期任職的前任Nursultan Nazarbayev在 1月分道揚鑣, Tokayev希望證明他可以在沒有贊助人的情況下領導他的 2,000 萬人口的國家。

普京曾支持Tokayev，在哈薩克斯坦領導人無法完全信任自己的安全部隊之際，俄羅斯領導的軍事集團向哈薩克斯坦派兵，這引發了批評，認為Tokayev現在欠了莫斯科恩惠。

他的行為自俄羅斯 2 月入侵烏克蘭以來，表明情況並非如此。

哈薩克斯坦呼籲和平並拒絕承認俄羅斯聲稱吞併了烏克蘭一些地區的公投 - 烏克蘭和西方國家嘲笑這些投票是滑稽戲。

甚至在戰爭之前，這位官員就表示，哈薩克斯坦曾拒絕莫斯科在 2020 年推動在後蘇聯歐亞經濟聯盟內建立單一貨幣和聯合議會，這是五年戰略計劃的一部分。

這位官員表示，哈薩克斯坦政府正在重新評估與俄羅斯的關係，儘管這個巨大的鄰國仍然具有很大的影響力。

CPC今年遭受的破壞比以往任何時候都多，迫使哈薩克斯坦削減其 2022 年的石油產量和出口, 打擊了該國財政。

CPC管道兩次報告繫泊點損壞，限制了出口量。俄羅斯一家法院還以洩漏問題為由，試圖暫停該管道的運作。

So,  Kazakhstan will expand its oil exporting route not for immediate economic benefits. From a political point of will, I would say that Kazakhstan’s move is an act of de-coupling, with a view to reduce reliance on Russia. Since the outbreak of Putin’s war in Ukraine, Central Asia's five former Soviet republics have increasingly been standing up to Moscow, knowing their new-found leverage as Russia is busy in finding out ways to circumvent Western sanctions. I think such a development is beyond the expectation of many people, including Putin himself.