Kazakhstan, Astana / corr Trend K.Konirova / Scott Naumann, the head of economic US company ExxonMobil, stated that Technical tasks are less problematic than economic and political aspects in the implementation of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline.
"I was in Kazakhstan 10 years ago and the last discussions concerned the pipelines via the Caspian Sea," the company official said. "Whenever it concerns the construction of any pipeline, then there exist technical, economic and political tasks. All these problems existed even 10 years ago and they still exist. I'd say the technical tasks are less problematic than other two. It is possible to build a gas pipeline via the Caspian Sea. Pipelines should, first of all, be economically grounded, but it is necessary to take into consideration the geopolitical issue. Now I should imagine how to resolve this geopolitical aspect of the project," Naumann stressed.
ExxonMobil is fully optimistic with respect to the potential opportunities of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in the hydrocarbon production.
" Kazakhstan possesses big oil and gas reserves. The projects such as Karachaganak, Tengiz and Kashagan are huge even from the world scale aspect. We believe that the volume of production in Kazakhstan will increase by 2030. We are very optimistic with respect to the potential of hydrocarbon production in Kazakhstan. We are also optimistic of the future and potential opportunities of Azerbaijan, which possesses big oil and gas reserves," he added.
ExxonMobil participates in two projects in Azerbaijan - Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (8%) and Araz-Alov-Sharg (15%). The last projects were suspended until the resolution of the Caspian legal status between Azerbaijan And Iran.
Earlier, ExxonMobil participated in the Nakhchivan, Zafar Mashal and Oguz projects. The project was closed due to the absence of commercially reasonable hydrocarbon reserves.