Azerbaijan, Baku, October 3/Trend, E.Kosolapova/
The demand for the creation of a Kazakhstan Caspian Transportation System grows in connection with the start of oil production at Kashagan and implementation of the project for expansion of the Tengiz field, according to senior analyst of the Agency for Research of Investments Profitability, Murat Abulgazin.
"The timely and topical project for the country is the Kazakhstan Caspian Transportation System project (KCTS) which is designed to export the increasing volume of oil from the Kashagan field (the second phase) and Tengiz (the future development project) through the Caspian Sea to international markets. This refers to the opportunities of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and other oil transporting systems of a South Caucasian direction," Abulgazin told Trend via e-mail on Wednesday.
Earlier, Deputy Chairman of Kazakhstan's national oil and gas company KazMunaiGas, Kurmangazi Iskaziev told journalists that the Kazakh authorities had agreed on the Tengiz field expansion project worth $23 billion. As a result of this project, production in the field will increase from 26 to 38 million tons of oil per year. In addition, oil production started in the Kashagan field in September.
According to Abulgazin, the increasing oil production at Tengiz to 38 million tons by 2018 is almost identical to the plan and coincides with plans to expand its main artery, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium pipeline.
He recalled the expansion of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) was planned to be completed in 2014, but it was postponed to 2015 due to certain problems.
"In 2012, the CPC pipeline circulated about 33.3 million tons of oil and within the project of expansion of its technical capabilities, its capacity will reach 67 million tons per year by 2015, with anti-friction additives - up to 76 million tons including Kazakh oil at 52.5 million tons per year," the expert said.
However, even with the full expansion of the CPC pipeline by the end of 2014, there will be a demand for the Eskene-Kuryk pipeline which is a segment of the KCTS in 2018-2019 during the implementation of the second phase of development of the Kashagan field and increase of production at Tengiz.
KCTS consists of two segments - Eskene-Kuryk and the Trans-Caspian system. The capacity of KCTS at the initial stage will be 23 million tons per year (500,000 barrels per day) and will be increased to 35-56 million tons per year (800,000-1,200,000 barrels per day) at subsequent stages. The schedule of the project implementation will be linked to the creation of a sufficient resource base.