Nur-Sultan, September 17 - Neftegaz.RU. According to NewEurope, the level of daily production at the Kashagan oil field reached the 380,000 barrels, the press service of Kazakhstan’s oil ministry said.
The North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC) international consortium plans to reach 420,000 barrels per day by 2022 and 500,000 barrels per day in 2027.
Covering the Kashagan, Kalamkas, Kairan, Aktoty, and Kashagan south oil fields, the North Caspian Project is the 1st major offshore oil and gas development in Kazakhstan.
The giant Kashagan field ranks as one of the largest oil discoveries of the past 4 decades with approximately 9-13 billion barrels (1-2 billion tonnes) of recoverable oil. The Kashagan reservoir lies 80km offshore from the city of Atyrau in 3-4 m of water and is more than 4km deep.
In 2016, the 1st offshore oil in the history of Kazakhstan was commercially produced from Kashagan. The operator of the project, North Caspian Operating Company N.V. (NCOC), completed a major pipeline replacement project ahead of schedule and on 28 September re-opened the 1st wells offshore.
The first 1 million tonnes were exported in the 1st days of 2017, and NCOC safely reached actual production levels of over 200,000 barrels per day in mid-2017.
Given its scale and technical complexity, the North Caspian project will be developed in phases. The estimated cost of Kashagan Phase 1, which began commercial production in 2016, is about $55 billion.