By the early 2000s transit routes improved with the first private pipeline to the Black Sea in 2001, followed by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline to the Mediterranean which broke Kazakhstan’s dependence on Transneft’s Russian pipeline. Oil began flowing in large quantities just as world prices soared (Figure 1.2). The large exchange rate depreciation in 1999 which coincided with the start of the oil exports boom kick-started economic growth.