WESTERN Kazakhstan’s Karachaganak Integrated Organization will launch the Karachaganak–Bolshoi Chagan–Atyrau oil pipeline imminently, according to recent reports. The 635-km long pipeline is currently undergoing final inspection and testing, prior to initiating transportation of up to 7million tons of oil per year.
The pipeline will provide access to the world market for oil produced at Karachaganak, via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s Tengiz- Novorossiysk pipeline (see map courtesy of KIO at www.kio.kz). Reserves at the Karachaganak field are approximately 1.2 billion tons oil and condensate, and 1.35Tcum of gas. The 1,580-km Tengiz-Novorossiysk pipeline joins fields in Western Kazakhstan with the Russian Black Sea coast, and was officially launched in November, 2001. The first stage of the pipeline has a capacity of 28 million tons of oil/yr, which will gradually increase to 67 million tons/yr.
The Karachaganak field, a giant gas condensate and oilfield in Western Kazakhstan, was discovered in 1979. To stimulate further field development activities, the Kazakh authorities entered into an agreement in 1992 giving the UK’s BG (British Gas) and Agip (part of the Italian ENI group) exclusive rights to negotiate a production-sharing agreement, which was signed in 1995. This allowed the BG Group and Agip to halt the rapid decline of production, and improve the safety and environmental performance of the facilities. In August, 1997, Texaco (now ChevronTexaco) acquired a 20% share of Karachaganak from BG Group and Agip, and in November, 1997, Lukoil took over the 15% of the project formerly held by Gazprom.
A substantial investment is now being made to increase production from the jointly-operated Karachaganak field, and an investment of more than US $1 billion is planned in the current (second) development phase. This is being directed at new processing facilities and well workovers, and the construction of the pipeline.