Azerbaijan, Baku /corr Trend /Agip, an operator of Kashagan, a huge field of Kazakhstan, announced that a new well on the field has been tested and the initial oil flow is 35,000 barrels per day (some 1.7mln tons per year), Energy Intelligence Group reports.
The industrial production is expected to begin in 2010. Although initially, the project was estimated at $10.3bln, it is now estimated at $19bln.
Kashagan, located 80km southwest of Atirau, is the biggest field in Kazakhstan with an area of 75 km x 45km. The field was discovered in July 2000 during the drilling of the first exploration well (BK-1).
Currently, the potential geological reserves comprise 38bln barrels of oil, including 13bln of recoverable reserves produced by utilizing technology for gas pumping to layers.
Several shareholders of the Kashagan project are investors of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan export oil pipeline project and have a share in its discharge.