Azernews.Az

President Nursultan Nazarbayev has discussed the development of Kazakhstan's giant Kashagan and Karachaganak fields with Italian energy giant Eni's CEO Paolo Scaroni, the presidential press service said Tuesday.

"Issues of cooperation in the oil and gas industry, in particular, the development of the Kashagan and Karachaganak fields, were discussed," it said.

Scaroni informed Nazarbayev of progress in the course of enforcing the agreement on cooperation in making investments in the Central Asian state's industrial infrastructure, signed by Kazakhstan's national oil company KazMunaiGas and Eni in 2009.

President Nazarbayev got familiar with the joint project to build a shipyard on the Caspian Sea and a gas turbine power plant in West-Kazakhstan region.

Kashagan is one of the largest fields in the world, which was discovered in 2000. Earlier it was planned to start production at Kashagan in 2005, but due to technical difficulties the launch of output was postponed until late 2012 or early 2013.

Kashagan project partners are Eni, KMG Kashagan BV, Total, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell holding 16.81 percent stake each, while ConocoPhillips has 8.4 percent and Inpex 7.56 percent.

Karachaganak field with reserves of 1.2 billion tons of oil and condensate and more than 1.35 trillion cubic meters of gas is one of the major oil and gas fields in the world. 49 percent of Kazakhstan's gas production and 18 percent of oil production comes from this field.

Kazakhstan holds 10 percent in the project. BG Group has 29.25 percent, while Eni holds 29.25 percent, Chevron 18 percent, and Lukoil 13.5 percent.