KMG stake in Caspian Transportation System 50 percent - Idenov

energy

KMG stake in Caspian Transportation System 50 percent - Idenov

By SRI ⋅ July 6, 2009 ⋅

(SRI) - KazMunaiGas has a 50-percent stake in the planned Kazakhstan Caspian Transportation System (KCTS) with Azerbaijani SOCAR holding the other half, Maksat Idenov, the first vice president of the Kazakh national oil company said last week.

“KMG’s stake in the project is 50 percent. According to the agreement that KMG and SOCAR signed last year, the national coil companies split their stakes by half,” Idenov told TREND, an Azerbaijani news service.

Earlier, TREND cited a source from KMG who claimed that KMG’s stake represents 51 percent. Moreover, Kazakh Energy Minister Sauat Mynbayev told journalists in March that Kazakhstan would refuse to participate in the project for less than a 51-percent blocking stake.

“Nothing has changed since KMG and SOCAR signed the agreement,” Idenov stressed.

SOCAR’s representative in Kazakhstan Burgun Dzhafarov confirmed that the original agreement indeed still remains in place.

The KCTS project, once constructed, will allow Kazakhstan’s producers to connect to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline via a shuttle system of sea tankers. On the Kazakh side, a new oil port will be built in Kuryk, a Caspian town with a natural harbor, and a pipeline originating in the town of Eskene in western Kazakhstan will connect it to the participating Kazakh fields. A fleet of tankers will then transport Kazakh oil to a new loading facility near Baku, which will link to the BTC pipeline.

A feasibility study on the the construction of the Eskene-Kuryk pipeline is expected to be completed in late 2009. The conduit, with an annual capacity of about 20 million tons, will cost USD1.3-1.4 billion, according to preliminary estimates.

The KCTS would be capable of transporting up to 500,000 bpd in its initial stage, with further increases to as much as 1.2 or even 1.8 million bpd possible.