No considerable increase expected in Kazakhstan’s gas extraction
By Aynur Karimova
The U.S. Energy Information Administration says it doesn’t expect a considerable increase in Kazakhstan’s gas extraction.
In its Country Analysis Brief report on Kazakhstan, published on January 14, EIA said Kazakhstan's largest petroleum liquids fields such as Karachaganak and Tengiz contain substantial volumes of natural gas, most of which is re-injected into oil wells to improve oil recovery rates.
“When it comes online, the first phase of the Kashagan project is expected to marginally boost supplies of dry gas to consumers in Kazakhstan,” the report said. “However, like the Karachaganak and Tengiz projects, much of the gas produced from Kashagan will be either re-injected into the well to boost liquids recovery or used at the project site to produce electricity.”
The Oil & Gas Journal estimated Kazakhstan's proven natural gas reserves at 85 trillion cubic feet as of January 1. In 2014, Kazakhstan increased its natural gas production by 1.6 percent to 42.992 billion cubic meters.
The majority of Kazakhstan's gas reserves are located in crude or condensate-rich fields.
EIA said in 2013 the Karachaganak and Tengiz fields combined accounted for more than 90 percent of Kazakhstan's raw marketed natural gas production.
The Tengiz project includes a gas processing plant, which produced 251 billion cubic feet of dry marketed natural gas in 2013 that was sold to local consumers.
The Karachaganak project has insufficient gas processing capacity. Most of the raw marketed production from the Karachaganak field has to be exported to Russia to be processed at a gas processing plant in Orenburg.
In 2013, about 30 percent of this processed gas was sold in Russia, with the remainder of the dry gas returned to Kazakhstan to help meeting local demand.
Aynur Karimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on
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