Azernews.Az

The Chevron-led Tengizchevroil (TCO) venture in Kazakhstan purchased Kazakh goods to the amount of $24 million in 2012, the head of TCO's department for domestic market development, Nurlan Serik, told Trend news agency.

"The volume of purchases of Kazakh goods (excluding services and works) by our company has grown five-fold in three years - from $5 million in 2010 to $24 million in 2012," Serik said.

He noted that the share of purchases of Kazakh goods (excluding services and works) accounts for 10-20 percent.

"Overall, in 2012, TCO spent $1.8 billion on goods, services and works in Kazakhstan. During 20 years of work in this country, this figure amounts to $13 billion," Serik said.

According to him, 60 percent of Chevron's (one of the main shareholders of TCO LLP) total expenditures in 2012 accounted for Kazakhstan.
"During the first quarter of this year, the volume of purchases of Kazakh goods totaled $500 million. This is encouraging, that is, we are moving forward in the development of local content," Serik said.

"To support local producers, we have introduced the contract strategy. That is, if the contract is being signed with a foreign company, it obligatorily indicates the necessary measures for the development of local content, such as creation of the joint venture, defining contractors to perform the work," he said.

According to him, implementation of the so-called future expansion project opens great prospects for Kazakh producers, providing for the increase in growth of oil production by 12 million tons per year.

"Planning within the future expansion project has been completed by 50 percent, and some research work will be conducted by the end of the year," Serik said.

The future expansion project will allow increasing hydrocarbon production by more than 46 percent from the current level. Starting from 800,000 tons a year in the early 1990s, oil production by Tengizchevroil totaled 25.9 million tons by the end of 2010 (an increase of 13.1 percent compared to 2009). This is 32.5 percent of the total production of crude oil and gas condensate in the republic, or 79.7 million tons recorded last year.

The dynamics of production growth in the Tengiz and Royal fields is actually one of the highest in the country. Particularly, in comparison with 2003 (12.75 million tons), oil production has more than doubled.

Tengiz is one of the largest fields in Kazakhstan with recoverable oil in its reservoir from 750 million to 1.1 billion tons (six to nine billion barrels).