On 16 November in Astrakhan Lukoil president, Vagit Alekperov told journalists that his company will spend over $16 billion over the next decade to develop the country’s Caspian offshore Korchagin and Filanovskii oil and natural gas fields in the Caspian, at the signing of a cooperation agreement with the Astrakhan Region.

The December 1991 collapse of the USSR was an unmitigated disaster for all 15 nations emerging from the desiccated carapace of the Soviet Union.

Now, like a plate of mercury smashed with a hammer, rivulets of the former USSR member state’s energy assets two decades later are trickling back under the control and influence of Eurasia largest energy concern, Gazprom.

One of Washington’s key policy tenets since the 1991 collapse of Communism has been to pry out from under Moscow’s control as much of the energy assets of the post-Soviet space as possible.

What a difference a year and a tsunami make.

Western investors have been salivating over the post-Soviet space’s energy riches since the 1991 collapse of communism. While focusing on the Caspian’s hydrocarbon reserves other mineralogical riches awaited development as well, none more so than Kazakhstan’s vast uranium deposits.