Chevron-led venture Tengizchevroil (TCO), Kazakhstan’s largest oil producer, is expected to boost output by 42 percent to 38 million tonnes by 2021, Kazakh Energy Minister Vladimir Shkolnik said on Wednesday.
TCO, which is developing the giant onshore Tengiz oilfield in western Kazakhstan, had output of 26.7 million tonnes last year, down from a record 27.1 million in 2013.
TCO’s production is expected to remain flat this year, Shkolnik told a government meeting.
In October, Kazakhstan’s government gave the go-ahead to a TCO expansion project.
“The probable date for launching new expansion facilities is 2021,” Shkolnik said on Wednesday.
The government is working with the TCO consortium to find ways to cut the project’s costs, Shkolnik said.
“Our main demand is that the flow of dividends and profits to the republic (from TCO) should not be smaller, but on the contrary, should rise from this project’s expansion,” he said.
Shkolnik said last year the government disagreed with the $40 billion expansion project budget presented by TCO and would “fight and check” its every figure.
TCO’s output is crucial to support Kazakhstan’s stagnant oil output this year and next before the giant Kashagan oil project, shut due to gas leaks in its pipelines in October 2013, is restarted in the second half of 2016.
Kazakhstan’s oil production fell by 1.2 percent to 80.8 million tonnes last year. It is officially forecast to slip to 80.5 million this year.
U.S. oil major Chevron holds a 50 percent stake in TCO.
Kazakhstan, the second largest ex-Soviet oil producer after Russia, holds a 20 percent stake in the venture via state oil and gas firm KazMunaiGas. Exxon Mobil has 25 percent and Lukarco, controlled by Russia’s Lukoil, the remaining 5 percent.
Reuters
