NEW DEVELOPMENTS AT KAZAKHSTAN’S TENGIZ OILFIELD.

Kazakhstan’s Oil and Gas minister Nurlan Balginbayev announced yesterday new steps toward development of the giant Tengiz oil field on the Caspian Sea. He said that Kazakhstan’s partner in that venture, the US Chevron oil company, will sell part of its stake to Russia’s LukOil company, which will in turn cede part of its future oil quota from the project to the Kazakh-Chevroil joint venture Tengizchevroil. Balginbayev went on to confirm Kazakhstan’s intention to sell part of its own stake in the project to the US Mobil Oil company.

Balginbayev further announced that a new consortium will be formed to build a pipeline from Tengiz to a Russian port on the Black Sea. Russia and Kazakhstan will each have a 25 percent stake, with the remainder to be distributed among Chevron, Mobil, British Gas, and Agip (Italy). (16)

Tengizchevroil was created in 1993 as a Chevron-Kazakh parity joint venture to develop and exploit over a 50-year period the oilfield, whose recoverable reserves are estimated at 1 billion tons. The venture has been seeking additional financing for the projected total investment of $20 billion. The pipeline construction was planned by a Russia-Kazakhstan-Oman consortium created in 1992, but which has been unable to raise the necessary capital. Balginbayev said that the new pipeline consortium remains open to Omani participation. Agreements in principle on the formation of the two new consortiums were reached during Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev’s talks with Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin in September and with US vice president Albert Gore and Chevron and Mobil managers in the USA in October.

1. Itar-Tass, October 31

2. Itar-Tass, October 31

3. Itar-Tass, October 31

4. Russian TV, October 30

5. Interfax, October 30

6. Interfax, October 31

7. NTV, Russian TV, Interfax, October 30 and 31

8. BNS, October 31

9. BNS, October 31

10. Itar-Tass, October 31

11. Interfax, October 30 and 31

12. Interfax, October 31

13. Interfax, October 31

14. IRNA News Agency, October 29

15. Interfax, October 31; see also the October 27 Monitor

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