Net outflow of foreign investment from Kazakhstan's oil and gas sector reached $1.5 billion in the second quarter — an all-time record for the country since independence, according to industry expert Olzhas Baidildinov. According to him, the republic has entered a phase of declining investment in extraction, as reported by infohub.kz.
According to National Bank data on gross foreign direct investment inflows by sector, oil and gas extraction became the sector with the largest net capital outflow both for the quarter and for the half-year. In the second quarter of 2026, $1.5 billion left the oil and gas sector, while over the first half of the year the figure stood at $349 million.
The indicator reflects the difference between funds invested in the extraction and exploration of oil and gas fields and capital withdrawn from the country in the form of profits and dividends.
In his channel, Olzhas Baidildinov called the quarterly result of –$1.5 billion a record low for the entire period of Kazakhstan's independence. Among the factors behind the decline in investment in the oil sector, the expert highlighted the depletion of existing fields and the absence of new ones, as well as overregulation of the market.
"There is nothing wrong with paying dividends: profit extraction is the foundation of capitalism. It's just that we have already entered a phase after which oil production will begin to decline. The music at the oil party hasn't stopped yet, but it is already beginning to fade," Baidildinov noted.
According to the expert's estimate, until the 2030s Kazakhstan will be able to maintain current production volumes at around 2 million barrels per day, but by 2040 oil may not even be enough for domestic refining, and by the 2050s production will come to an end.
Earlier, the expert predicted that by 2050 oil production in Kazakhstan would fall to the level of the early 2000s — from 96 million tonnes in 2025 to 38 million in 2050. Against this backdrop, the country's oil revenues will also begin to decline starting in 2025.