Azerbaijan, Baku, November 9 / Trend /
First oil from Kazakhstan's Kashagan oil field will be produced in 2012, said the Chairman of the Eni Company Paolo Scaroni, after a meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, official website of KazMunaiGaz reported.
Scaroni said: "It was a very important meeting for us. The first thing we discussed was the work of the Eni Company on the Kashagan field. The first oil will be produced here in 2012."
By the end of 2009, within in the first phase of construction of Kashagan project, over 70 percent of the work will be completed, the managing director of North Caspian Operating Company BV (NCOC) Pierre Offan declared in September.
Since 2008, NCOC has been serving as the operator of the North-Caspian project. The participants of the international consortium developing Kashagan are KazMunayGaz, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, TOTAL, ConocoPhillips, INPEX.
Kashagan field's reserves are estimated at 35 billion barrels (more than 4.5 billion tons). Part of oil to be produced on this field will be transported through the territory of Azerbaijan.