Azernews.Az

Norwegian Statoil has decided to withdraw from work on the Abay field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea, a source in the petroleum sector told Trend news agency.

"Statoil has decided to withdraw from the Abay project. The Kazakh Ministry of Oil was informed about this decision yesterday," the source said.

The press service of the Ministry of Oil hasn't yet commented on this issue.

In April 2011, Kazakh national oil and gas company KazMunaiGas (KMG) and Statoil signed an Agreement of Principle on Abay.

According to the agreement, the parties planned to work on the harmonization of conditions of joint activity within the Abay project. In addition, the parties agreed on Statoil's participation in the building of a jack-up rig, which will be used in future for exploration of the Caspian Sea shelf.

Abay is located in the northern part of the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea and is 65 kilometers from the coast at a depth of 8-10 meters.

KazMunaiGas is Kazakhstan's national exploration, production, processing and transportation operator. 100 percent of the shares belong to the National Welfare Fund Samruk-Kazyna JSC.

Statoil is an international energy company, represented in over 40 countries. The company is one of the world's largest exporter of crude oil, the largest operator of deepwater fields with depths of over 100 meters, the world leader in the capture and storage of CO2, the second largest exporter of gas to Europe, and the largest seller of oil products in Scandinavia. The Statoil office in Astana was opened in 2004.