Since November 2020, a total of 140 new COVID-19 cases were reported at the field, 71 of which were reported over last 4 days.
Similar drastic increase in COVID-19 cases at the field was observed in May 2020, when Kazakhstan's Chief Sanitary Doctor Aizhan Yesmagambetova said that operations at TCO-operated Tengiz oil and gas field may be suspended if number of COVID-19 cases among field's staff continues to increase.
The first 2 cases of coronavirus infection were detected in Kazakhstan among those who arrived in Almaty city from Germany on March 13, 2020.
The Tengiz oil field was discovered in 1979 and is one of the biggest and deepest oil fields in the world.
The total explored reserves of Tengiz reach 3.2 billion tons, while recoverable reserves range from 890 million tons to 1.37 billion tons.
In 1993, Tengizchevroil, which is the project operator, was established on the basis of an agreement between Kazakhstan and Chevron.
Presently, Tengizchevroil includes Chevron (50 %), ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Ventures Inc. (25 %), KazMunayGas (20 %) and LukArco (5 %).
Author: Nargiz Sadikhova
