Final timeframe to resume Kashagan oil production to be announced after mid 2014
By Aynur Jafarova
The final timeframe to resume oil production at Kazakhstan's giant Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea will be available in the second half of 2014.
The news was announced by Kazakh Economy and Budget Planning Minister Erbolat Dossayev on April 29.
The commercial production at the field is expected to be resumed in late 2015, he told journalists.
"We will wait for the information from the North Caspian Operating Company. The consortium will give more precise information about the timeframe for resumption of the production," the minister said.
Dossayev recently said the $50-billion Kashagan project is likely to be delayed for two more years.
It was the first public admission by the government that the project will not only fail to produce oil this year, but may not also resume production till 2016.
The North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC), the operator of the North Caspian Sea Project (Kashagan field) said earlier that oil production at Kazakhstan's giant Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea will not be resumed in 2014.
"The restart of production will depend on the results of the investigation which are due by the end of Q2, but production is not expected to resume in 2014," the report said.
With recoverable oil reserves estimated at 11 billion barrels, the Kashagan field is believed to be the largest oil field in the world after Prudo Bay in Alaska. Its natural gas reserves are also estimated at over 1 trillion cubic meters.
Oil production in the field started on September 11, 2013. However, operations had to be stopped on September 24 due to a gas leak in the onshore section of the gas pipeline running from Island D to the Bolashak onshore processing facility.
The Department of Emergency Situations was immediately briefed on the regulations. Production was resumed, but stopped again on October 9 after the detection of a gas leak.