October 1 - Kashagan still shut down

By Laura Suleimenova 

Today, October 1, is the deadline after which, as per the Supplemental Agreement to PSA, the NCOC consortium's expenses will not be compensated by the oil produced. To recall, the main condition was to start commercial crude production by this date.

As NCOC press service reported today, D island gas pipeline repair works are under way (see “Bolashak plant saw another gas leak”).

Additionally, the company informed that they were currently investigating the technical incident that took place on September 24: “No discharge of toxic hydrogen sulfide into the atmosphere in volumes hazardous to health were detected and no human victims were reported.  Oil production has been stopped… in the evening of September 26 earth excavation works have been started… and pipeline repair works started on September 28. .. It is still early to talk about the date of resuming oil production operations...

To recall, two days after the accident, Oil Minister Uzakbai Karabalin stated that Karabatan incident “in actual fact, is not an incident, but a test of a compete pipeline”.

- We don’t’ think that this shutdown would impact commercial production… To-date plant and wells capacities are sufficient enough to ensure commercial level of production. If now we finalize commissioning operations, then the field system itself will be capable of going to commercial level. So far, we don’t see any special reasons that would prevent us from reaching our goals”, - said Karabalin.