Publications

Survey of Energy Resources 2007

Natural Bitumen and Extra-Heavy Oil Country Notes

Kazakhstan

Although Kazakhstan possesses large resources of conventional and heavy oil, it contains little if any extra-heavy oil. It does have significant resources of natural bitumen in the North Caspian Basin. As with nearly all the large natural bitumen deposits, the geological setting, like that of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, is conducive to the development of natural bitumen. In the light of the very large resources of conventional oil and natural gas in this country, development of the bitumen as a source of synthetic oil is unlikely in the foreseeable future.