08-09-02 A major oil and gas discovery has been made in eastern Kazakhstan that establishes the region near the Chinese border as a petroleum province. The find was made near Lake Zaisan, an area where Soviet explorations were conducted prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The joint venture that made the discovery, the Zaisan Company, comprises the state oil company of Kazakhstan, KazMunaiGaz, and the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (Kufpec).

The discovery was made after three years of exploration activities in the Semipalatinsk Province, near the town of Zaisan and just 100 km from the Chinese frontier. It is the first hydrocarbon find in eastern Kazakhstan.
The report states that the discovery well has a planned total depth of 8,200 ft (2,500 meters), but that it has already encountered significant hydrocarbon pay zones. The first, a thick gas-bearing zone was encountered at a depth of was drilled to a total depth of 2,460 ft (750 meters) and oil-bearing sands were found at adepth of 4,052 ft (1,235 meters). The Zaisan Company is drilling ahead toward the designated depth.

According to the report, the discovery well has tapped a reservoir estimated to contain 1.76 tcf of natural gas and upwards of 100 mm barrel of oil.
Should the proposed Kazakh-China pipeline be built, it will pass very near the Lake Zaisan area and provide an export line for oil and gas produced from the newfound Zaisan Field.