Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 28
By Rashid Shirinov – Trend:
Crude oil production at Kazakhstan's giant offshore field Kashagan in the Caspian Sea has reached its full first stage capacity of 380,000 barrels per day. The project's partners aim to stabilize output at this level in 2019, Trend reports citing S&P Global Platts.
Earlier, Kazakhstan's energy minister Kanat Bozumbayev said that the project was likely to reach the first stage designed level in mid-2019, after a major 45-day maintenance work scheduled for April-May. However, production has already exceeded these plans.
"We're already producing 380,000 barrels per day, which corresponds to the maximum capacity [of the first stage]," Arnaud Breuillac, upstream chief of Total, one of the project's partners, told reporters.
This level, however, has not been stable and North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC) developing the Kashagan project is now focusing on how to optimize production.
"Reaching stable oil production at plateau [in 2019] - this is the challenge for Kashagan," Breuillac said, adding that the partners are now looking into ways to optimize production costs and efficiency, and to anticipate the next phase of the development.
Kashagan oil field in the northern part of the Caspian Sea is one of the largest oil fields discovered in the last 40 years. Its recoverable reserves are estimated at approximately 9-13 billion barrels of oil.
NCOC shareholders are KMG Kashagan B.V. (16.9 percent), Shell Kazakhstan Development B.V. (16.8 percent), Total E&P Kazakhstan (16.8 percent), Agip Caspian Sea B.V. (16.8 percent), ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Inc. (16.8 percent), CNPC Kazakhstan B.V. (8.3 percent) and Inpex North Caspian Sea Ltd. (7.6 percent).
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