Kazakhstan, Astana, Sept. 7 /Trend D.Mukhtarov/
Today the heads of two national companies - China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) and Kazakhstan's KazMunaiGas (KMG) signed an Agreement on sale of KMG's 8.3 percent share to CNPC. The Program of strategic partnership between CNPC and KazMunaiGas was also signed.
In July Kazakhstan's Ministry of Oil and Gas sent a notification to ConocoPhillips on Kazakh government's intention to use its priority right to acquire the stake of ConocoPhillips in Northern-Caspian project.
KMG acted as the buyer on behalf of the government in carrying out the purchase of ConocoPhillips' stake in the Northern-Caspian project.
Earlier Lyazzat Kiinov, who was at that time holding the position of the head of KMG, said in an interview with Reuters that CNPC will buy a stake in Kashagan field from KMG paying over $5 billion for it.
ConocoPhillips, which reduces its assets worldwide, has 8.4 percent share in the project. The partner companies in Kashagan project: Eni, KMG Kashagan BV (a subsidiary of KMG), Total, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell each have 16.81 percent shares and, Inpex has 7.56 percent of shares.
Kashagan is a large oil and gas field in Kazakhstan, located in the north of the Caspian Sea. Its geological reserves are estimated at 4.8 billion tons of oil. The total oil reserves amount to 38 billion barrels or 6 billion tons, some 10 billion out of them are recoverable reserves.
There are large natural gas reserves at the Kashagan field - over one trillion cubic metres.