Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15
By Elena Kosolapova - Trend:
No considerable increase is expected in Kazakhstan's gas production, said the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) Country Analysis Brief report on Kazakhstan, published on Jan. 14.
Kazakhstan's largest petroleum liquids fields such as Karachaganak and Tengiz also contain substantial volumes of natural gas, most of which is re-injected into oil wells to improve oil recovery rates, according to EIA.
"When it comes online, the first phase of the Kashagan project is expected to marginally boost supplies of dry gas to consumers in Kazakhstan," the report said. "However, like the Karachaganak and Tengiz projects, much of the gas produced from Kashagan will be either re-injected into the well to boost liquids recovery or used at the project site to produce electricity."
The Oil & Gas Journal estimated Kazakhstan's proven natural gas reserves at 85 trillion cubic feet as of January 1, 2014, EIA said.
The majority of Kazakhstan's gas reserves are in crude or condensate-rich fields.
In 2013, the Karachaganak and Tengiz fields combined accounted for more than 90 percent of Kazakhstan's raw marketed natural gas production, EIA said. The Tengiz project includes a gas processing plant, which according to Chevron produced 251 billion cubic feet of dry marketed natural gas in 2013 that was sold to local consumers.
The Karachaganak project has insufficient gas processing capacity. Most of the raw marketed production from the Karachaganak field has to be exported to Russia to be processed at a gas processing plant in Orenburg. In 2013, about 30 percent of this processed gas was sold in Russia, with the remainder of the dry gas returned to Kazakhstan to help meet local demand.
The next phase of development at Karachaganak originally included plans for facilities to process its own gas and boost dry natural gas supplies to consumers within Kazakhstan.
However, the project developers have since changed their plans, and gas produced under Karachaganak's next expansion will largely be reinjected into the field to boost liquids recovery, the report said.
Edited by S.I.
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