Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

A Kazakhstan official says various foreign companies have expressed their interest to invest in the Eurasia project.

President of Kazakhstan's Society of Petroleum Geologists, Baltabek Kuandikov said companies from the U.S., Chinese and Russian have already showed interest in the project on exploration of deep horizons of the Caspian depression.

He went on adding that:"We [the representatives of the special commission for the Eurasia project] had meetings with six or seven foreign companies which include U.S., Chinese and of course, Russian companies."

The implementation of the new Eurasia project was declared by Kazakh Prime Minister Serik Akhmetov during the Eurasian energy forum of KazEnergy.

Kuandikov also noted that the representatives of foreign companies are interested in the privileges and preferences that can be gained with participation in this project.

"Every proposal is being studied by the country's Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in a working order," Kuandikov stressed.

A special commission was set up to monitor the Eurasia project in late 2013. Oil workers and representatives of Kazakhstan's several ministries are members of this commission. It's meetings are presided over by Kazakh Oil and Gas Minister Uzakbai Karabalin.. To date, the commission has held two meetings.

"The third meeting will be held in March 2014 during which the operative issues of the Eurasia project will be discussed," Kuandikov said.

He also noted that the commission is evaluating the experiences of deep drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and in Sakhalin.

"We recently have had a meeting with Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment with whom we discussed a number of issues, as the Eurasia project also covers Russia's territory," Kuandikov said.

The first working session will be held at the end of the first quarter of 2014 for all companies interested in participation in this project.

"In parallel, negotiations are being held with Kazakhstan's Committee of Geology to gain access to old geological materials, in order to discuss the prospects of geological exploration on a more subject-based level," Kuandikov said.

The implementation of the Eurasia project will be carried out in three phases. The first phase envisages the collection and processing of materials from previous years. The second phase includes large-scale researches. The last phase includes the drilling of a new support-parametric well called Caspian 1, at the depth of nearly 14-15 kilometers. The estimated cost of the three phases of the Eurasia project is about $ 500 million.

The work on the Eurasia project is scheduled to begin in 2015.

The resource potential of the Caspian region, especially of the Caspian depression, amounts to approximately 40 billion tons of oil equivalent. Earlier Karabalin said the depth of the Caspian basin amounts to around 20,000-25,000 meters and there is a large volume of oil-generating rocks.