BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 17
Trend:
Kazakh MP Salimzhan Nakpayev raised the problem of self-flowing emergency oil wells, Trend reports via Kazakh media.
“As is known, in January 2021, President of Kazakhstan Kasym-Jomart Tokayev, at an expanded meeting of the Government of Kazakhstan, noted that one of the current pressing issues is the ecological situation in the country - an important area that affects the quality of life of the population,” the Kazakh MP stressed.
“In 2010, 8,584 onshore oil wells and 1,262 on the shore of the Caspian Sea were investigated across the country, following which it was recommended to liquidate 82 oil wells,” Nakpayev said at a plenary meeting of the Kazakstan Parliament.
According to the MP, the akimat (Mayor’s Office) of Atyrau region in 2013, already touched on the problem of 1,400 oil wells in the region, with a possible risk of oil leakage.
“So, this problem concerns not only the foregoing region but also a number of other regions, including Mangistau and Aktobe regions. For example, East Tasorpa, Kultai, Zhilyanskaya, Petropavlovskaya and other wells. According to the Ministry of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources, to date, one well has been liquidated on the coast of the Caspian Sea, and 41 wells on land, 5 of which remain to be liquidated,” the MP noted.
He said that the liquidation of abandoned emergency oil wells was carried out at the expense of the state.
“Whereas, wells that are located on the territory of subsoil users are required to be liquidated or preserved at the expense of the companies. However, some unscrupulous subsoil users do not fully fulfill their duties and do not provide any information about what kind of work they are doing in this direction. At the same time, to date, the statistical data of the surveyed and abandoned wells do not coincide, and it remains unclear how many emergency wells remained on land and how many on the Caspian Sea coast. At one time, hydrogeological wells were included in the account of these orphaned oil wells,” Nakpayev added.
According to Nakpayev, the government should take the following specific measures: establish and update the number of wells subject to abandonment and conservation in the territory of Kazakhstan; take measures against subsoil users on whose territory emergency wells exist; draw up a clear schedule for several years for the abandonment or conservation of orphan emergency oil wells with sufficient allocation of funds from the budget.