Public hearings and prosecutor's interest

By Laura Suleimenova

Informal sources reported that prosecutor's office became interested in the legality of issuing permitting documents to the project “Cargo transportation route for the facilities of the Northeast part of the Caspian Sea”.

So far they are trying to clarify who was involved in the development or approvals of the documents. We sent our inquiry to the regional prosecutor's office and waiting for their response.

Meanwhile, Unex stroy LLP, the contractor of Tenizservice LLP that implements this project within the framework of TCO’s Future Growth Project,  held public hearings in Kulsary on Nature Protection Actions for 2015.

We wrote about this controversial project from ecological point of view in our previous publications (see “Tengiz to have a sea channel, for sturgeons and seals it's a wash-out” , “It's a wash-out for surgeons” , “Pubic hearings to be held again”).

However, “Tenizservice” got hold of all permitting documents and the project, despite ecologists’ objections, is being implemented at full speed.

To recall, the cargo transportation project envisages the construction of 66 km long sea channel for transportation of prefab modules to TCO’s 2nd generation plant site at Tengiz  from Aktau port. Besides the channel, a mooring complex for loading/unloading of cargo with an access road will be constructed. The cost of the project for 2013 was $600-700 mln.

Tenizservice LLP is an affiliated company (48,99%) of the national oil company KazMunaiGas. The other shares of “Tenizservice” belongs to private individuals among whom is Timur Kulibaev.