Production At Kashagan In 2023 Reached A Record Level – About 18.8 Million Tons
JSC NC KazMunayGas announced a meeting between the Chairman of the Board of the company, Magzum Mirzagaliev, and the Executive Vice President of the Oil and Gas Exploration and Production division of Shell, Peter Costello. At the meeting, a number of current issues were discussed in the main areas of cooperation, the main topic of conversation was Kashagan. Kashagan is the country’s largest offshore oil and gas project. Production at Kashagan in 2023 reached a record level of about 18.8 million tons. And on January 11, the operator of the Kashagan field, NCOC (North Caspian Operating Company), announced that it had reached a production milestone of 100 million tons of oil since the start of production.
Further development of the field will focus on increasing the production of commercial gas to meet growing demand in the domestic market of Kazakhstan. Production at Kashagan is partially constrained by the gradually increasing proportion of associated gas in the flow of hydrocarbons to the surface, with the operator having to inject the produced gas back into the reservoir. The project to build a gas processing plant in Kashagan with a capacity of 2.5 billion m3/year is a priority, the company’s press release says.
Once the construction of the Kashagan gas processing plant is completed, it will be possible to increase production at offshore facilities in the Caspian Sea by approximately 25,000 b/d of oil, Kashagan field operator NCOC previously stated.
The issue of providing Kashagan and Karachaganak with volumes of oil for transportation along the Trans-Caspian route in the first half of 2024 was also discussed.
Kazakhstan’s Energy Ministry said it plans to increase the country’s oil production by 7% to nearly 2 million bpd this year from 2023, with additional production exported to international markets.
NCOC is the operator of the North Caspian Project, the first major offshore oil and gas development project in Kazakhstan. NCOC includes KazMunayGas, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, Total SA (16.81% each), China National Petroleum Corporation (8.4%) and Inpex (7.56%). The North Caspian Project includes three fields: Kashagan, Kairan and Aktoty.
