Shell to manage KCS

Shell will manage a new operating company for an international consortium planning to develop Kazakhstan's vast offshore oil reserves, a company official said. A production sharing agreement with the Kazakh government was also expected this summer, the official said. "The foreign partners have set up a team to do this work and in the interests of efficiency, it should be staffed by one company," Richard Preston, Shell's venture manager for the KazakhstanKaspiyShelf (KCS) consortium, told. "That is Shell." He said a joint-owned operating company managed by Shell, would be formed once an agreement was signed.
KCS was set up in 1993 to survey 100,000 sq km of virgin acreage off the former Soviet republic's Caspian Sea coast, one of the largest offshore searches in the history of oil exploration. The $300-million survey, to be wound down next month, was the consortium's entry ticket to first rights on Kazakhstan's rich offshore fields.
The KCS consortium comprises Shell, Agip SpA of Italy, British Gas and Norway's Statoil, Total SA of France and Mobil.