Recently, a jack-up rig has been upgraded there for work in Turkmenistan. Other minor facilities are possibly available at Atyrau and Aktau in Kazakhstan and at Krasnovodsk in Turkmenistan. These would likely be limited to light fabrication and used as supply bases. Oil and gas development companies are initially concerned with industrial infrastructure required for building and supporting production facilities. However, development of social infrastructure in the region is equally important in determining the pace of oil and gas exploration and development, and will be critical to the success of both the developers and the host country.
Social infrastructure is facilities and amenities that are generally provided for public use.
These include public road and railway systems, airports, power generation and distribution facilities, general housing, schools, recreation facilities, and so on. While national and expat staff employees of oil and gas developers may make use of these types of infrastructure, these facilities would not generally be built or owned by oil and gas companies. Instead, the host country governments should provide the majority of this infrastructure from general tax revenues. The social infrastructure of the Caspian basin is largely pre-existing from the Soviet Union. Like the industrial infrastructure, it has suffered in recent years from a lack of investment in capital upgrades and maintenance.