Gentlemen on the Caspian

Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi have engaged in the latest round of mutual shoulder-massaging amid the Caspian Sea country's recent oilfield muscle-flexing. What does it mean?

We can still be friends.

That's important as contract renegotiations become a principal theme in the former Soviet Union.

The two leaders met today in Astana to talk over Kazakh demands that the Italian-led consortium developing the supergiant Kashagan field cough up some compensation for its miserable performance.

Nazarbayev came out of the meeting saying that he had no intention of revising the decade-old Kashagan contract. That means precisely nothing in terms of the final agreement -- the demands on Kazakhstan's menu involve no contract revisions.

Specifically, Kazakhstan wants big cash much earlier than the consortium had in mind; and, to foreclose future such misunderstandings, it wants to keep the foreigners on a much shorter leash -- meaning some form of joint operatorship of Kashagan.

Rather than any softening of Kazakhstan's demands, what the remarks signify is that both sides would like to conclude this unpleasant business in as civilized a manner as possible, so as to maintain a basis for workable future relations.

Eni Chairman Paolo Scaroni, the field's operator, has done exactly the same thing with Nazarbayev in recent weeks-- gone in, polished the president's apple, then engaged in informal, smiley-face post-meeting news conferences. Chevron Chairman Dave O'Reilly, facing a $609 million environmental fine for his own supergiant Kazakhstan field (Tengiz), did his own diplomatic rounds two weeks ago.