Azerbaijan, Baku, April 6 / Trend, V. Zhavoronkova /
The commissioning date and implementation stages of the Eskene-Kurik oil pipeline and the Kazakhstan Caspian Oil Transportation System (KCTS) project will depend on creating a sufficient resource base -namely from the Kashagan and Tengiz fields, KazMunaiGas told Trend.
The construction of the Eskene-Kurik oil pipeline is currently only at the project documentation phase.Work is continuing in this direction.
The volumes of oil planned for production during the Kashagan field's second phase serve as the basis for ensuring the entire KCTS project's cost-effectiveness.
Earlier, the KCTS project was to be postponed until 2018-2019 in connection with the second phase's implementation. However, yesterday media reported that Kazakhstan plans a three-year halt to the work on the main phase of the Kashagan field's development.
The KCTS project is designed to export Kazakh oil across the Caspian Sea to international markets via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, as well as other oil transport systems located in Azerbaijan and other transit countries.
The KCTS consists of two segments - the Eskene-Kurik oil pipeline and the Trans-Caspian system.
The consortium, which includes the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic and KMG-Transcaspian, announced a tender to determine the contractor for the Transcaspian oil transport system's feasibility study in June 2010. However, the tender failed.
KazMunayGaz and SOCAR signed an agreement on the KCTS in Baku in late 2008.
The system must provide for the possibility to transport Kashagan oil via the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus to world markets in the amount of 23 million tons in the initial stage with a further increase to 35-56 million tons per year.
The system includes an oil terminal on the Kazakh coast, tankers and vessels.
The Trans-Caspian transport infrastructure can also be partly used for transporting oil from other transport routes.