PM had a look at Kashagan

On November 22 RoK Prime Minister Serik AKHMETOV paid a working visit to Atyrau.  Among the persons who accompanied PM were the Minister of Oil and Gas Sauat MYNBAEV, Chairman of Samruk-Kazyna NWF Umirzak SHUKEEV and Senator Sarsenbai ENSENGENOV.

Since it was Akhmetov’s first visit to Atyrau Oblast in the quality of prime minister, he didn’t conduct any briefings or made any statements. As it was explained to the journalists, the trip was of a familiarization character.

In the morning the delegation by helicopter visited the artificial D island in Kashagan. Currently the total number of people employed there equals to over 5.4 thousand people, including vessel crews.

Then the prime minister visited Bolashak plant at Karabatan. The total cost of the plant has already amounts to $3.9 bn. The plant is designed to do the final preparation of oil and gas from Kashagan field for its further transportation via CPC and Makat - North Caucasus export pipelines.

The plant’s capacity is 450 thousand barrels per day (22.5 mln tons per year). To-date the total work scope completed on land within the framework of the 1st and 2nd stages of construction activities is over 80 %.

The prime minister had a bus ride around Bolashak plant, then he visited the heart of the plant - the central dispatching office. The head of Bolashak plant operations, Alibek TASIMOV, acquainted explained to the prime minster the functions of each group of control panels.

After a short visit to the plant the prime minister and the accompanying officials left for Atyrau, where they visited Chevron polyethylene pipes production plant. In the second half of the day Akhmetov departed to Astana. The journalists stayed in Karabatan and had a communication session with NCOC managing director Pierre Offant.

Mr. Offant proudly announced that the project is nearing its completion stage and noted that the project is challenging both from technical and environmental point of view. As he said, the field is located in “very sensitive area from the point of view of environmental protection”.

To recall, it is scheduled to receive the first oil from Kashagan in March 2013. According to Offant, the plant is expecting to get a stable oil production in the middle of next year. Then to increase the volume of produced oil (after the start up of gas re-injection project) from 370 thousand up to 450 thousand barrels per day.

Pierre OffantAs to the future plans, Mr. Offant stated the consortium is currently holding negotiations with the ROK government on implementation of other projects. Particularly, the development of Kalamkas field in the Caspian Sea.

- We are expecting that the decision will be adopted at the end of next year or at the beginning of 2014. Now we are working on field development concept and next year we hope to get down designing phase, -said Offant.

by Laura SULEIMENOVA

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