01Key Takeaways
- Kazakhstan exported $78.74 billion worth of goods in 2023, up 3.41% from $76.14 billion in 2022.
- Mineral fuels led every export category at 58.93% ($46.40 billion), almost entirely crude oil pumped from Kazakhstan's Caspian fields.
- Italy ranked as Kazakhstan's top export destination at 18.84% ($14.84 billion), narrowly ahead of China at 18.74% ($14.76 billion).
- Italy's top ranking traces back to Eni, the Italian energy major that holds stakes in Kazakhstan's Kashagan and Karachaganak oil fields.
025-Year Trend
| Year | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value | $58.1B | $41.9B | $53.1B | $76.1B | $78.7B |
03Top Export Markets (2023)
| Rank | Partner | Value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Italy | $14.8B | 18.8% |
| 2 | China | $14.8B | 18.7% |
| 3 | Russia | $9.8B | 12.4% |
| 4 | Netherlands | $4.1B | 5.2% |
| 5 | Turkey | $4.0B | 5.0% |
| 6 | South Korea | $3.8B | 4.8% |
| 7 | Uzbekistan | $3.1B | 4.0% |
| 8 | France | $2.9B | 3.7% |
| 9 | Romania | $2.8B | 3.5% |
| 10 | Greece | $2.2B | 2.8% |
04Top Export Categories (2023)
| Rank | Category | Value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mineral Fuels, Mineral Oils and Products of their Distillation; Bituminous Substances; Mineral Waxes | $46.4B | 58.9% |
| 2 | Ores, Slag and Ash | $5.0B | 6.3% |
| 3 | Inorganic Chemicals; Organic or Inorganic Compounds of Precious Metals, of Rare-Earth Metals, of Radioactive Elements or of Isotopes | $4.3B | 5.5% |
| 4 | Iron and Steel | $4.3B | 5.5% |
| 5 | Copper and Articles thereof | $3.2B | 4.1% |
| 6 | Cereals | $2.2B | 2.8% |
| 7 | Nuclear Reactors, Boilers, Machinery and Mechanical Appliances; Parts thereof | $1.8B | 2.3% |
| 8 | Electrical Machinery and Equipment and parts thereof; Sound Recorders and Reproducers, Television Image and Sound Recorders and Reproducers, and Parts and Accessories of such Articles | $1.2B | 1.5% |
| 9 | Natural or Cultured Pearls, Precious or Semi-Precious Stones, Precious Metals, Metals Clad with Precious Metal, and Articles thereof; Imitation Jewellery; Coin | $1.1B | 1.4% |
| 10 | Salt; Sulphur; Earths and Stone; Plastering Materials, Lime and Cement | $619.4M | 0.8% |
05Trade Partner Map
06Analysis
Crude Oil Dominates Kazakhstan's Export Economy
Kazakhstan exported $78.74 billion worth of goods in 2023, up 3.41% from $76.14 billion in 2022. Mineral fuels topped every export category by a huge margin, at 58.93% of the total, worth $46.40 billion. That oil moves largely through one piece of infrastructure. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium carries crude from western Kazakhstan's Tengiz field, cutting across southern Russia, to the CPC terminal at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, where it loads onto tankers bound for global buyers. No other category comes remotely close to matching the size of that oil business. Kazakhstan's biggest fields, Tengiz and Kashagan, sit beneath the Caspian Sea and its shoreline, developed over decades by a mix of Kazakh state ownership and major foreign oil companies working alongside it.
Ores, slag and ash ranked a distant second at 6.32% ($4.98 billion). Kazakhstan produced about 40% of the world's uranium in 2025 through its state-owned Kazatomprom, a business large enough to leave a real mark on this category alongside other mined ores. Inorganic chemicals and iron and steel followed in a near tie, at 5.52% ($4.35 billion) each, and copper and articles thereof added 4.09% ($3.22 billion). Cereals rounded out the larger categories at 2.77% ($2.18 billion), a reminder that Kazakhstan's vast steppe farmland still exports real volumes of wheat even in a trade profile this heavily tilted toward oil and metals. Every one of these categories, oil, uranium, steel, copper, wheat, comes straight out of the ground or off the land. Kazakhstan sells the world raw and semi-processed materials far more than it sells finished products.
Italy Outranks China Because of Who Owns Kazakhstan's Oil Fields
Italy absorbed 18.84% of Kazakhstan's exports in 2023, worth $14.84 billion, narrowly ahead of China at 18.74% ($14.76 billion). That ranking looks surprising on a map, since Italy sits thousands of miles from landlocked Kazakhstan while China shares a long border with it. Eni, the Italian energy company, holds a 29.25% stake in the Karachaganak field and 16.81% in Kashagan, two of the three giant fields feeding Kazakhstan's oil exports. Ownership, not geography, explains why so much Kazakh crude ends up counted as exports to Italy.
Russia ranked third at 12.43% ($9.79 billion), a relationship shaped as much by pipeline geography as by direct sales, since the CPC route to Novorossiysk runs straight through Russian territory. Netherlands added 5.15% ($4.06 billion), a common landing point for crude entering European refining networks, and Turkey contributed 5.04% ($3.97 billion). South Korea took 4.84% ($3.81 billion), and Uzbekistan added 3.99% ($3.14 billion), Kazakhstan's neighbor to the south and a reminder that not all of this trade is oil bound for distant refineries. France supplied 3.75% ($2.95 billion), and Romania added 3.51% ($2.77 billion), home to refineries that process Caspian crude. Greece closed out the top ten at 2.82% ($2.22 billion). Together, Italy, China and Russia made up 50.02% of total export value, half of everything Kazakhstan sold abroad concentrated in just three relationships.
Exports Have Grown by a Third Since the Pandemic Low
Kazakhstan's export total has climbed unevenly but persistently since its 2020 low point. It stood at $58.07 billion in 2019, then fell to $41.87 billion in 2020 as the pandemic hit oil demand and prices worldwide. It recovered to $53.07 billion in 2021, then jumped sharply to $76.14 billion in 2022 as oil prices surged globally. The 2023 figure of $78.74 billion, up 3.41% year over year, extended that gain rather than giving any of it back.
That pattern sets Kazakhstan apart from oil-dependent economies whose export totals fell back once 2022's price spike cooled. Kazakhstan kept growing instead, even as global energy prices eased from their peak. Higher production volumes, not just higher prices, likely explain part of that resilience, since Kazakhstan has spent years working to expand output from its major fields and diversify how much crude it can move past the CPC pipeline's capacity limits. A country this dependent on a single commodity and a single transit route will always carry real risk. Any disruption along the CPC route, whether from weather, mechanical failure, or the kind of regional conflict that has periodically threatened Black Sea shipping in recent years, has an outsized ability to move Kazakhstan's entire export total. Still, 2023's numbers show an export base finding room to grow rather than one straining against its limits.