Kazakhstan's Tengiz growth project completion delayed as far as mid-2024: Chevron

Nur-Sultan, August 2 - Neftegaz.RU. The expansion project, comprising 2 major components, is intended to lift Tengiz production capacity to 850,000 b/d of crude, or 1 million b/d of oil equivalent, including gas & gas liquids, and thus significantly boost CPC volumes.

Chevron had already flagged the likelihood of delay to the 'Future Growth Project' (FGP) and 'Wellhead Pressure Management Project' (WPMP), which have involved deploying tens of thousands of workers to the remote site on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, and a major logistical exercise to ship modules through the Russian canal system.

The Tengizchevroil (TCO) consortium, in which Chevron holds a 50% stake alongside smaller stakes for ExxonMobil, Lukoil, and KazMunaiGaz, has contended with a significant COVID-19 outbreak among workers.
Jay Johnson, executive upstream VP said:

• At FGP-WPMP overall progress is at 84%, with field construction 69% complete
• We've recently reviewed our cost and schedule targets
• At this point, the net schedule extension from the pandemic is expected to be roughly a quarter for WPMP and 2 quarters for FGP

An accompanying slide show showed the WPMP component delayed from late 2022 to mid-2023 and the FGP component delayed from mid-2023 to between late 2023 and mid-2024.
Johnson said:

• Our cost target remains $45.2 billion as cost reduction efforts and favorable exchange rates offset an estimated $1.9 billion of incremental costs associated with COVID
• The COVID costs include mitigation efforts, de-mobilization and remobilization costs, as well as the expected schedule extension
• Although the total project cost target is unchanged, we have increased the project contingency to $1.9 billion, to recognize the schedule uncertainty associated with the virus and its variants
• The project is currently at peak workforce and our primary focus is to mitigate the impact of the virus with vaccinations, testing, and isolation protocols to enable workforce productivity

Tengiz production has been constrained of late by Kazakhstan's commitments under the OPEC+ output pact; however, the field has a nameplate capacity of 600,000 b/d at present and has at times produced well above this level.

Tengiz is generally the largest contributor of the light CPC crude blend loaded at Novorossiysk on Russia's Black Sea coast, with the Kashagan field now generally the second-largest contributor.