ASTANA – The twofold drop in oil prices on the world market didn’t change the investment strategy of Tengizchevroil. The company, a joint venture between Chevron (50 %), ExxonMobil (25%), KazMunayGas (20%) and LUKOil (5%), is developing another major expansion at its Tengiz field in the Atyrau region which, when completed, will increase oil production from the current 24 million tonnes to 36 million tonnes per year.
The third-generation plant, part of the so-called Future Growth Project, will be among the most-technologically advanced in the world. Despite financial difficulties faced by oil companies due to lower oil prices, Tengizchevroil made the decision to continue to progress in critical areas, including infrastructure, camps and site preparation activities already underway at Tengiz, said its supply chain manager Jerry Jaсobson.
Tengizchevroil has already concluded 30 contracts for construction work and supply of the necessary equipment to the amount of $1 billion. Sixty-six percent of this amount is local Kazakh content, he added.
Preliminary design has been completed, but detailed design work will be made in Atyrau, Almaty, Aktau, the U.K. and the U.S. Project infrastructure works are in process and construction is expected to be finished in 2019, as quoted by the ceeconstruction.com website.
“To date, early and preliminary work on construction sites is being conducted at the deposit; that is the construction of the new camp and building infrastructure for future facilities for the project,” said Murat Munbayev, Tengizchevroil head of strategic planning.
First Vice-Minister of Energy Uzakbai Karabalin spoke about the threefold increase of resource base in the stateat the March 12 Kazakhstan geology, oil and gas forum. The forecast is based on the results of a full-scale study of 15 sedimentary basins in the country. The review, pursued in recent years, showed that deep-lying resources of the Caspian Sea trench are estimated to contain67 billion tonnes of coal equivalent and 27 billion tonnes of oil equivalent, according to the EnergoNews website.
