Caspian oil and gas projects see about $ 50 bn in investment

Jun 07, 2006 02:00 AM

So far, approximately $ 50 bn has been invested under the oil and gas projects in the Caspian, the president of the Russian oil company LUKoil, Vagit Alekperov stated at a conference on “Stable development of oil and gas operations in the Caspian basin”. The oil production in the Caspian increased twice, while gas -- 30 %.
“Expansion of the CPC and the completion of the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan main export oil pipeline (BTC) provide an access to the Caspian energy resources,” he said.

At present LUKoil is exploring 10 perspectives in the Caspian, while it has succeeded to 6 fields with the estimated reserves of approximately 150 mm tons of oil and 700 bn cm of gas.
He noted that now the company is involved in the development of the northern part of the Caspian. It has experience in operating at low depth in the border of ice coverings. The similar project is carried out in the Baltic Sea, he underlined.

The development of the Central Caspian will be carried out a bit later due to small depth. Gas produced by companies will be delivered to internal markets of Russia for refining. The oil will be transported to world oil markets.
“The companies are in talks with Transneft, CPC, Azerbaijan and Iran in the issue of transportation of own oil,” he concluded.

Source: Trend