OREANDA-NEWS  The Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan is negotiating with major subsurface users to increase oil production in the republic, head of the department Yerlan Akkenzhenov said at a government meeting.

According to the minister, in the first half of 2026, production in Kazakhstan decreased by 8.4% year-on-year.

"In the first six months of this year, 45.7 million tons were produced, or 91.6% compared to the same period last year," he said.

Akkenzhenov recalled that in order to make up for the previously reduced volumes of oil production at Kashagan, scheduled repairs were postponed from 2026 to 2027. According to him, this will make it possible to compensate for up to 2 million tons of oil.

The Ministry of Energy maintains plans for oil production at the level of 98 million tons of oil by the end of this year, the head of the department added.

"Total losses (in oil production) have been reduced from 4.9 million tons to 3.3 million tons," Akkenzhenov also said.

Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin, reporting on the results of economic development in January-April, noted that losses in oil production amount to about 5 million tons. It was noted that the decline in the oil and gas industry is due to "the situation at CPC and Tengiz."

At the beginning of 2026, there were restrictions in the work of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), and oil production was suspended at the largest Tengiz field in January due to a malfunction of transformers. Full-scale production at Tengiz was resumed in March after this incident.

As reported, oil and gas condensate production in Kazakhstan in January-May 2026 decreased by 10.2% year-on-year, to 37.025 million tons.

Kazakhstan produced about 99.6 million tons of oil in 2025.