China Now Dredging Kazakhstan’s Caspian Ports as It is Already Doing Russia’s

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 27 – Falling water levels in the Caspian and the rivers flowing into it are forcing littoral countries to dredge them so as to prevent the emergence of a situation in which large or fully laden ships are unable to pass. And because they lack the dredging capacity needed to do so, two of them have now turned to China for assistance.

            Russia began doing so last year (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/06/falling-water-levels-forcing-moscow-to.html). Now Kazakhstan has followed the same course and contracted with the China Harbor Engineering Company to dredge its port of Aktau (casp-geo.ru/dnouglubitelnye-raboty-v-portu-aktau-realizuet-kitajskaya-kompaniya/).

            Iran has a significant dredging capacity but none of the other littoral states do; and consequently, as the Caspian water level continues to fall, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan may be forced to do the same thing, unless other dredging operators sell them the necessary equipment to do it themselves.

            To the extent that happens and there is every reason to think that it will given how specialized and expensive dredging equipment is, China will gain yet another powerful position along the trade routes across the Caspian, something that will give it additional leverage not only over the littoral countries but further afield.