There’s a very interesting piece by Paul Betts in the FT today about Kazakhstan’s skillfully shrewd strategies as a regional energy player: Given the experiences in Russia, the Kazakhs have woken up to the opportunities for renegotiation of the old contracts on a 38bn-barrel field and they appear determined to extract as much as they can from the western companies. They have not hesitated to use a dispute over rising development costs and production delays to threaten stripping Eni of its operational role. Hey! Look at Russia! If they can push around energy companies with no consequence, then why can’t we?! Call it a contagious case of resource nationalism. More excerpts after the cut…