Kazakhstan expects oil production to reach 96mln tonnes in 2028 and 99mln tonnes in 2029; Azerbaijan's oil production fell 8.3% Y/Y to 2.2mln tonnes in August, Interfax reports

Projections of rising output several years out carry the usual caveats: they rest on expansion projects at the large offshore fields, where ramp-ups have a history of slippage, and on export route capacity, which for Kazakh crude has been concentrated through a single pipeline system that has proven vulnerable to disruption. Azerbaijan's decline fits the longer-running pattern of mature field depletion, a structural downtrend rather than a policy choice, and its volumes are small enough that the signal is about regional supply composition rather than the global balance. The distinction worth drawing is between quota-relevant growth, which complicates OPEC+ compliance arithmetic and tends to surface in compensation-plan negotiations, and secular decline, which the alliance generally accommodates. Worth watching is whether the Kazakh trajectory is formalised into its OPEC+ baseline discussions and how the grouping's next review of members' production capacity treats it.