In the summer of 2000, Kairat Satybaldy, a nephew of Nursultan Nazarbayev, who in 2002 took the position of Managing Director for Social Affairs, Strategic Planning and Telecommunications at KazMunayGas, became the Vice President of Kazakhoil.

Zhansaule Karabalayeva was found in the countryside near the oilfield in Western Kazakhstan with multiple injuries, according to her father, Kurdaibergen Karabalayev, in a telephone interview on 27 August.

On 31 August, Interior Ministry spokesman Nurdilda Oraz said in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan, that the police "did not associate" the "common crime" of Karabalayeva's murder with her father's activities.

In the same report, the KMG EP press office said the father was not the trade union chairman and had never been a strike activist but worked as an engine driver for the company until 27 July this year.

[15] Until mid-September 2011, daily protests by angry protestors, many of whom used to work at Uzen, continued in Zhanaozen's main square "in a rare display of popular dissent".

[15] The unrest has persisted, with violence erupting on independence day, 16 December 2011, killing 16 and leaving about 100 injured as police opened fire on the demonstrations.

[19] Army units and armoured personnel carriers were sent in by the Interior Ministry to quell the ensuing protests, which saw government and Uzenmunaigaz buildings set alight by demonstrators.