page_title: Energy policy of Kazakhstan
section_title: Oil pipelines
hierarchical_section_title: Energy policy of Kazakhstan / Energy transportation / Oil pipelines
caption_attribution_description: To download the full resolution and other files go to: earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=78232&amp;src=... The Sor Kaydak is a salt marsh that leads into the northeastern bulb of the Caspian Sea. This land depression is occasionally inundated by water from the Caspian Sea, as both the marsh and the Sea lie at the same elevation—29 meters below global sea level. They are separated by a low bar of land that is just 1–2 meters high. The central 50 kilometers of the 180 kilometer-long marsh depression is shown in this astronaut photograph from the International Space Station. Water in the marsh takes on different colors—from brown to pink to light green, moving northeast to southwest—as a result of the interplay of water depth and the resident organisms such as algae. Algae color varies depending on water temperature and salinity. Irregular gray areas (top left) are wet zones between low sand dunes. These inter-dune flats are whitened with salt that comes from the evaporation of Caspian Sea water. (The Sea is just beyond the top left of the image.) The jagged line following the colored water is the limit of the wetting zone (or perimeter), an irregular zone influenced by wind and the depth of water in the marsh. Small cliffs mark the eastern margin of the depression that contains Sor Kaydak. Above the cliffs, a plateau—about 200 meters above the salt marsh, 160 meters above global sea level—extends eastward for hundreds of kilometers. Here the plateau is occupied by a dense pattern of well heads, which appear as a geometric pattern of tan dots. By contrast, the west margin (image left) rises less than 10 meters above the marsh. The straight line visible at image center is a pipeline built to take oil to a terminal on the Caspian shore 100 kilometers northwest of the area shown here. Astronaut photograph ISS031-E-30896 was acquired on May 11, 2012, with a Nikon D2Xs digital camera using a 180 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science &amp; Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 31 crew. It has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by M. Justin Wilkinson, Jacobs/ESCG at NASA-JSC. The Earth Observatory's mission is to share with the public the images, stories, and discoveries about climate and the environment that emerge from NASA research, including its satellite missions, in-the-field research, and climate models. Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Add us to your circles on Google+
context_page_description: Kazakhstan owns large reserves of energy resources, and therefore the energy policy of Kazakhstan has influence over the world's overall energy supply. Although Kazakhstan has not described itself as an energy superpower, Kazakhstan's former president Nursultan Nazarbayev has claimed Kazakhstan will become a factor of energy security in Asia and Europe. Kazakhstan has a strategic geographical location to control oil and gas flows from Central Asia to East and West.
  Kazakhstan was a partner country of the EU INOGATE energy programme, which had four key topics: enhancing energy security,
  convergence of member state energy markets on the basis of EU internal energy market principles,
  supporting sustainable energy development, and attracting investment for energy projects of common and regional interest.
  On January 1, 2013, Kazakhstan became the first country in Central Asia to launch an economy-wide carbon emissions system to cap emissions from its biggest emitters in the energy, coal, oil and gas extraction sectors.
context_section_description: Main oil export routes are the Caspian Pipeline Consortium and the Atyrau-Samara oil pipeline to Russia, and Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline to China. Kazakhstan is also a transit country for the Omsk (Russia) -Pavlodar (Kasakhstan) -Shymkent - Türkmenabat (Turkmenistan) pipeline. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and Neka in Iran could be supplied by oil tankers. In addition, for the export to neighboring countries the rail transport is used.
  The Kazakhstan oil infrastructure is considered to be in poor condition which has constrained possible exports. Currently exports excluding the Caspian Pipeline Consortium is limited to 500,000 bbl/d (79,000 m³/d). Kazakhstan is also further hampered as the oil pipeline infrastructure is not set up to transport oil from the producing assets in the west to the main refineries located in the east of the country. The CPC provides an important outlet for Kazakhstan oil and it is expected that it will be up graded so as to export close to 15,000,000 bbl/d (2,400,000 m³/d).
caption: Sor Kaydak, Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan - NASA Earth Observatory
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