16-12-99 The companies developing the Karachaganak gas and condensate field in Kazakhstan have adopted a new investment program.
According to Russian media reports, the partners have agreed to invest $ 2.3 billion in the project by the end of 2001. Kazakh sources, however, put the investment figure at $ 2.5 billion.
Up until 1998, the members of the Karachaganak Petroleum Operating Company (KPO) had put only $ 160 million into the field.
The Russian sources stated that the new investment program provides for the construction of new railway lines, a water pumping station and a gas-fired power station by 2001.
KPO plans to invest another $ 4 billion in Karachaganak in the 2002-2006 period and $ 11 billion in the 2007-2036 period.
The field is split between British Gas and Italy's Agip, which each hold a 32.5 % equity stake in the project; Texaco of the United States, with 20 %; and Russia's LUKoil, with 15 %. BG and Agip have been in on the project from the beginning, but Texaco, which bought its stake in mid-1997, is a relative newcomer. LUKoil's 15 % stake was originally reserved for Gazprom, but the Russian gas monopoly bowed out of the project in mid-1996.
Karachaganak's recoverable reserves are estimated at 1.33 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, 644 million tons of gas condensate and 189 million tons of crude oil.