ALMATY, Kazakhstan (Wall Street Journal) -- When Dutch oil trader John Deuss jetted into this threadbare capital as the Soviet Union crumbled, he carried a vision for turning the fledgling nation's buried treasure into pay dirt.

A pipeline to send crude oil to voracious Western consumers, Mr. Deuss advised his chums in Almaty, would cure the woes of cash-strapped Kazakhstan. It would also help Chevron Corp. realise its multi-billion-dollar ambition to lend the new government a hand in developing the gigantic Tengiz oil field. Along the way, it could stretch Russia's ability to export crude. And it just might dim the awesome power of Middle Eastern oil, for the former Soviet states of Central Asia boast reserves almost as fantastic as those of the Persian Gulf.

So you would figure the farsighted Mr. Deuss would be a hero.

Figure again. His scheme to ship crude out of the colossal Kazakhstani oil patch has been criticised by the US, frowned on by international lending agencies, rebuffed by Chevron, hauled over the coals in Almaty and picked apart in Moscow. And the all-important pipeline has yet to be built. Why? The reason could well be Mr. Deuss himself.

"He's the sticking point,'' says Julia Nanay, a Petroleum Finance Co. analyst who tracks energy investments in Kazakhstan. A host of Western officials agree, and some say they blame him for slowing economic development in Central Asia.

But the enigmatic millionaire, who over the years has been accused of circumventing the trade embargo against South Africa and cornering the North Sea crude-oil market, is no stranger to notoriety.

When Mr. Deuss popped up in Almaty in those crucial early days of independence four years ago, oil-industry watchers figured the players in the elaborate Kazak crude game were in for a wild ride. Even his allies acknowledge now that perceptions of Mr. Deuss as a fortune hunter might be jeopardising his brainchild: the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which holds exclusive rights to build and operate a $1.2 billion, 900-mile pipeline from western Kazakhstan to the port of Novorossiysk on the Russian Black Sea.

"I'm tired of hearing (the criticisms), frankly,'' says Anatoly Lobaev, a former consortium board member and vice president of the Kazak energy holding company Munaygaz, waving his hand in dismissal. The attacks on Mr. Deuss, he says, are "a smokescreen.'' Poking with an index finger at the map of his landlocked country spread out atop his desk in Almaty, Mr. Lobaev continues, "This is the only issue: We have a lot of oil -- but oil that stays in the ground is worth nothing.'' That is the conundrum of Kazakhstan, and the 53-year-old Mr. Deuss was among the first to grasp it when the Soviet Union toppled.

Back then, Chevron brokers were on the verge of sealing a deal with Moscow for rights to the Tengiz field; the Soviet Union's break-up sent them dashing to Almaty. By the time they sat down at the new negotiating table, Mr. Deuss's patron, the sultan of the Arab state of Oman, had offered the young government a badly needed $100 million loan. And Oman Oil Co., of which Mr. Deuss is president, had been engaged as Almaty's adviser on foreign investments.

Chevron didn't mind at first. Mr. Deuss, a highflying risk-taker who often pilots one of his two Gulfstream jets, was known as something of a rainmaker.

In fact, when the Tengiz talks hit rough ground, Mr. Deuss stepped in to smooth things over.

He spent an estimated $5 million to host a series of meetings around the globe -- at his home in the Wyoming ski haven of Jackson Hole, his ranch in Connecticut, his offices in Bermuda and Oman, and in Washington, Paris, Moscow, London and Almaty. In the end, Chevron and Kazakhstan came to terms.

Their $20 billion, 40-year compact to develop the Tengiz jointly was a triumph heralded as "the deal of the century'' by Moscow newspapers. So incredible was the prize that Chevron's crude reserves shot to 4.2 billion barrels from 3.1 billion barrels in a snap. One day, pundits said, the field hugging the Caspian Sea could be tapped to the tune of 700,000 barrels a day.

But in what hindsight suggests was a blunder, Chevron and Kazakhstan neglected to arrange for a sure way to export all that oil to the Western buyers who would pay market prices for it.

Then, as now, every drop of Kazakhstani crude destined for the West must move through a Soviet-built system designed to accommodate the needs of a defunct empire. In fact, none of the crude buried in the former Soviet republics around the Caspian basin can make it to market without Moscow's blessing because it must cross Russian territory. And since Russia isn't keen on the idea of petro-dollars flowing to the upstart republics -- which, after all, many Russians still view as theirs -- such blessing isn't easily obtained.

That makes new pipelines crucial, and pipeline politics forbidding. "It's a very high-stakes game,'' says Matt Sagers, head of the energy division at PlanEcon Inc., of Washington, D.C., a firm that has done consulting work for most of the Western firms trying to operate in the region. "You can't underestimate what all the parties are willing to do to win.'' Two years ago, the hazards were not so clear. At the time, Chevron thought it sensible to put its faith in assurances from Moscow that the company would be allowed early on to export up to 120,000 barrels a day through Russia. Chevron would make more secure arrangements later, once the oil really started gushing from the Tengiz and the other Caspian basin fields being snapped up by Western companies.

But Russia didn't honour its pledge. Offering no explanation, it put the squeeze on Chevron's export access shortly after the Tengiz deal was signed in the spring of 1993. Chevron was stuck -- and to its dismay, John Deuss appeared to be in control due to his key role in the Caspian Pipeline Consortium. "The major energy players view him as an opportunist,'' says Carlos Quezada, a trader who once worked for Transworld Oil Co., one of Mr.

Deuss's companies. "They just don't trust his commitment to the long term.'' By this time, Mr. Deuss had spearheaded formation of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, with Russia, Kazakhstan and Oman as equal shareholders. Both Moscow and Almaty were enthusiastic partners because Mr. Deuss's plan made Deuss confident of progress on pipeline From Page 11 By using more than 400 miles of existing Soviet-era pipe -- now owned half by Kazakhstan and half by Russia -- the pipeline would be far less costly than alternative routes. In fact, the export path mapped out by the consortium is still viewed as the only way to go for early output from Kazakhstan.

But Chevron, scorning the financial terms demanded by Mr. Deuss's consortium, has steadfastly refused to agree to use the pipeline. The US government has backed the company; its representatives in the region have called the consortium set-up "non-commercial'' and, according to officials in Almaty and Moscow, have suggested to Kazakhstan and Russia that they find a way to push Oman out. The consortium, without the shipping guarantee from Chevron, has been unable to get the funding it needs to start construction. And Chevron, still without a fixed exit route to the West, is producing from the Tengiz only half of what it had planned to be pumping.

Frustrated after having plowed nearly $1 billion into the venture, the San Francisco-based company this year slashed Tengiz capital spending to zero, thus antagonising Almaty.

"Chevron is just sitting on top of that oil. It is the most ineffective project in Kazakhstan,'' declares Serikbek Daukeyev, Kazakhstan's minister of geology, who is no fan of the consortium, either. "If Chevron was really interested in development, it would have built its own pipeline long ago.'' But nothing is that simple in this part of the world. Chevron can make no deals with Kazakhstan or Russia unless the consortium contract -- viewed by Oman, at least, as a government-to-government treaty -- is dissolved. Chevron is in closed-door talks with oil czars in both Moscow and Almaty about financing schemes that would leave Oman out of the picture. But Oman, with $70 million invested so far, isn't about to walk away willingly.

Meanwhile, the feuding rages on. It comes down to this: Oman wants Chevron to put up about $280 million in cash and to guarantee half the pipeline's debt by agreeing to ship crude oil through the pipeline; in return, Chevron would get a 25 percent ownership stake in the $1.2 billion line. Oman would put in $50 million; for its much smaller down payment, it would earn a slightly better per-dollar return than Chevron.

That "is simply not a reasonable business arrangement,'' says Jeet Bindra, senior vice president of the Chevron Overseas Co. unit.

Chevron instead proposes that both it and Oman put up 50 percent of the required cash and debt guarantee and share equally in the profit.

Oman, in turn, rejects that. "How can they ask Oman to pay for a part of a consortium it already owns?'' asks Mr. Deuss, who asserts that Oman is risking venture capital and is therefore entitled to a significant return on what it puts in.

Even with tensions so taut, Oman isn't giving up. It's now working on a plan to erect the pipeline in two stages, the first running 150 miles only through Russia, from the town of Kropotkin to Novorossiysk. A new deep-water terminal would also be built, nearly doubling Russia's Black Sea export capability. Mr.

Deuss says that if outside financing doesn't arrive soon, Oman will put up the more than $300 million required. Construction, he contends, will begin in January.

That would be a boon for Russia, desperate as it is for more export capacity for its own oil -- and for the oil soon to be harvested in Azerbaijan by an 11-member group headed by Amoco Corp. and British Petroleum Plc. The group's plan to ship its initial output through Russia is one reason, Western officials say, that Moscow has yet to kick Oman out of the consortium for non-performance.

Mr. Deuss, for one, doesn't believe Oman will be booted. Sipping coffee in his modest office on the island of Bermuda, Mr. Deuss contends that the pipeline's execution "is proceeding on a well-defined track.'' As for all the personal scuttlebutt, he doesn't dwell on it. By all accounts supremely self-confident, the mild-mannered Mr. Deuss seems to succeed at shrugging off his critics.

In the oil industry, his reputation is the stuff of legend. The son of a Ford Motor Co. plant manager in Amsterdam, Mr. Deuss started out as the owner of a car dealership that ultimately went belly up. Switching gears, he began accumulating his fortune bartering oil deals. He is still vilified by some for ignoring the embargo on South Africa by brokering such deals for Johannesburg.

Facing off against such a formidable opponent, Chevron executives might be excused a little anxiety. But they aren't publicly distressed. "We're disappointed that (the Tengiz project) hasn't worked as well as anticipated, but we have no regrets,'' says Richard Matzke, president of Chevron's overseas unit. "We're a very patient company.'' So far, Wall Street hasn't given Chevron any knocks. Snatching even half of an enterprise the size of Tengiz is viewed as a coup no matter what the setbacks.

"It's a once-in-a-generation opportunity,'' says Eugene Nowak, an analyst with Dean Witter Reynolds. In 20 or 30 years, he adds, "Chevron could be in league with the Exxons and Royal Dutch/Shells of the world. . . . It's a long-term venture worth the risks.'' And what about John Deuss? Acquaintances say he is every bit as patient as Chevron. "He is a man who has built a fortune, a very efficient businessman,'' says Mr. Lobaev, the Munaygaz vice president. "He should not be underestimated.'' UNDER FIRE -- Oil trader John Deuss.