Kazakhstan approves expansion project cost for Tengiz field
By Aynur Jafarova
Kazakhstan has approved the cost of the project on the expansion of the Tengiz oil field at $23 billion, Novosti-Kazakhstan quoted Kurmangazi Iskaziyev, the deputy chairman of the Board of the KazMunaiGas National Oil and Gas company as saying on October 2.
The project which envisages increasing the production volume from 26 million to 38 million tons of oil per year will be completed in mid-2018, Iskaziyev said.
The Tengiz oil field was discovered in 1979 and is one of the deepest and largest oil fields in the world. Reserves of the deposit are estimated at 750 million to 1.1 billion tons (6-9 billion barrels) of recoverable oil.
The Tengiz field is developed by the Tengizchevroil consortium (TCO), a joint venture established in April, 1993. TCO partners are Chevron with a stake of 50 percent, KazMunaiGas with 20 percent, ExxonMobil with 25 percent and LukArko with five percent.
Earlier Kazakh Oil and Gas Minister Uzakbay Karabalin said the Kazakh government and TCO intend to sign a memorandum of understanding which includes important items, such as ecology and increasing the share of Kazakh content.
"Unprecedented steps will be taken within this project to increase the share of Kazakh content," he noted. "In particular, it will involve Kazakh companies working on the construction of steel entities, whose production capacity amounts to 60,000 tons of steel per year."
Karabalin said it is planned to increase share of Kazakh content in TCO to 32 percent of entire investment -- about $22-23 billion.