Kazakhstan’s Tengiz Expansion Completed as Chevron Faces Export Risks and Contract Talks

Chevron and partners have completed a roughly $48 billion expansion of Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field, boosting capacity by about one-third to around one million barrels a day. Tengiz is a giant field containing an estimated 25 billion barrels, with the adjacent Korolev field holding about 1.6 billion barrels.

Chevron holds 50 percent of Tengizchevroil (TCO); Exxon Mobil owns 25 percent, KazMunayGas 20 percent and Lukoil 5 percent. The project finished despite roughly $11 billion in cost overruns. Operators say past production was limited by processing capacity, which the new facilities are designed to fix.

The expansion comes as exports face new risks. Kazakh crude flows through a pipeline to Russia’s Novorossiysk port, and Ukrainian attacks on that route and Black Sea loading facilities forced about a 30 percent output cutback at Tengiz in late November. The TCO contract expires in 2033, and negotiations over its extension are beginning.

Kazakhstan’s president met Chevron’s chief executive several times in 2025; Chevron has said talks are off to a good start. Tengiz generated an estimated $4 billion in free cash flow for Chevron in 2025 and accounted for about 13 percent of the company’s global production in 2024.

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