Kazakhstan, Astana, Sept. 13 /Trend E. Kosolapova/
The rapid increase in oil production at Kazakhstan's Kashagan field may lead to serious and dangerous consequences, the expert of Institute for Political Solutions of Kazakhstan Sergei Smirnov said.
"The launch date of the deposit was rescheduled several times. Some of the equipments may have lied in boxes, some have been installed. But even if the equipment has not been installed, it still requires maintenance. After all, when it is not used, it gets old. I believe that this was not done in full. And now they (the consortium) will do it in a hurry. And if they will be forced to quickly increase oil production, an accident may occur,"- Smirnov told Trend.
The expert recalled that an accident occurred at Kashagan on the eve of launching of oil production at Bolashak factory. And earlier an accident occurred at the artificial island D. Thus, in the case of a sharp increase in oil production, an accident may occur, the damage from which will block all production revenues, the expert said.
He reminded that the agreement between Kazakhstan and the consortium of companies developing Kashagan has a point according to which the state will not reimburse the costs of the international consortium on development, if the oil production will start later than September 2013.
"Thus, it turns out that it (the consortium) was forced to start production," the expert said.
At the same time, according to Smirnov, now the matter rests in very small volumes of production, and by late 2013 there will unlikely be commercial oil from Kashagan.
He also reminded that the shareholders of the project have no common opinion on the volumes of production.
"Previously the exploration was planned to be launched in June. At that time the consortium's spokesman said that it is planned to start commercial production in July, and it should reach 75,000 barrels per day. But KazMunaiGas, which is also a shareholder in the project, said that it is planned to produce 370,000 barrels per day within the framework of the pilot-commercial development at Kashagan," the expert said.
Kashagan is the largest 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 and about 10 billion barrels out of them are recoverable. Kashagan has large reserves of natural gas - over one trillion cubic meters.
Trial production of oil at Kashagan field began on September 11. The development of this field was postponed several times since 2005.