Developing Kazakhstan’s new offshore field in Caspian Sea

Welders construct a gas pipeline in Kazakhstan.Kazakhstan’s energy ministry is working with the national oil and gas company KazMunaiGasto to secure a licence to develop Tsentralnoye (Central) offshore oil and gas field in the Caspian Sea.

According to a report by the Trend News Agency, KazMunaiGas, and Russia’s Gazprom and Lukoil companies are the authorised organisations in charge of the development of the Tsentralnoye project, neurope.eu reports.

A supplementary exploration is set to be conducted on the Tsentralnoye field to minimise the geological risks.

Both KazMunaiGas and TsentrKaspneftegaz, which are the shareholders of Lukoil and Gazprom, established a joint venture in 2013 to obtain an exploration and production licence in order to hold a supplementary exploration.

To do so, however, it is first necessary to amend a 1998 production sharing agreement between Russia and Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan’s energy ministry is now working with KazMunaiGas to prepare the needed package of documents for signing a draft protocol on amending the mentioned agreement concerning the Tsentralnoye field’s development.

The ministry also noted Kazakh and Russian energy ministries jointly with authorised organisations are working to reach agreement on the draft protocol for making amendments to the agreement on Khvalynsk project. 

“Following this, the two sides are expected to sign a production sharing agreement (PSA) for subsoil use of Khvalynsk oil and gas condensate field,” the ministry said.

“Currently, the issue of achieving acceptable cost efficiency by KazMunaiGas and Lukoil is being studied,” the ministry added.

The Khvalynsk reserve is estimated at 332 billion cubic metres of natural gas, 17 million metric tonnes of gas condensate and 36 million metric tonnes of oil. Around $1bn worth of investments are needed to develop this field.