At the end of October, President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan signed several controversial amendments to the country's Law on Subsoil Use. The new legislation permits the government to unilaterally change contracts for companies involved in extracting the country's mineral resources if Kazakh officials deem such alterations necessary to uphold their nation's economic and security interests.
On Oct. 8, President Nazarbayev had reassured visiting Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi that his government would honor the original terms of its contract with the ENI SpA-led consortium that was developing Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan oil field -- providing its members did likewise. On Oct. 22, Kazakh authorities and the consortium agreed to complete negotiations on revising the terms of the Kashagan project by the end of November 2007. ...
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