Azernews.Az

The Kazakh Oil and Gas Ministry intends to take measures to increase local input in major oil and gas projects, Executive secretary of the Ministry Kanatbek Safinov said at the forum 'Oil and Gas: Kazakh Content 2013'.

In particular there is an intention to transfer part of the largest procurement PSA (Production Sharing Agreement) projects, such as Kashagan, Tengiz and Karachaganak, to an electronic format in order to ensure maximum transparency.

"This means participants of the Kashagan project are still closed to domestic manufacturers. They often hold private bidding for their own group and are virtually inaccessible to our producers. It's time to change that," Safinov said.

Alongside, according to Safinov, the ministry understands the unacceptability of conducting serious high risk work (especially offshore) with companies that don't possess corresponding international certificates, but there are infrastructure projects related to the maintenance of plants and other facilities.

"Such projects require maximum transparency and the possibility of transferring to an e- format with a view to avoid complaints from domestic producers, make them aware of requirements of competitions, enable them to participate and guarantee that their applications won't be rejected," Safinov said.

According to the ministry, the government has introduced new procurement rules according to which other oil and gas companies (not PSA parties) proceed to electronic oil and gas trading.

"This is a transparent system providing for elimination of control opportunities, corruption and bias points," Safinov said.