Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

The Karachaganak Petroleum Operating B.V. company (KPO), the operator of the project on the development of the Karachaganak oil and gas condensate field in Kazakhstan, extracted 66.934 million oil-equivalent barrels of stabilized and non-stabilized liquid hydrocarbons, as well as gas and fuel gas in the first half of 2013, the company said on August 21.

Furthermore, the amount of gas re-pumps for maintaining reservoir pressure constituted 3.948 billion cubic meters, which is equal to 47 percent of total amount of extracted gas.

According to the results for the first year-half, the indicator of gas utilization in Karachaganak constituted 99.86 percent, which is quite great achievement.

According to the first year-half results, the share of Kazakh content in the KPO agreements on the supply of goods, works and services constituted 49.9 percent or $111.7 million.

KPO is one of the first companies in Kazakhstan to have successfully introduced Local Content Development Program. Implementation of the program has allowed drawing more than 3,000 Kazakh companies to the development of Karachaganak, which received order from KPO in the amount of over $4 billion.

To date, the partners on the Karachaganak project have invested about $17 billion in the project development. Amount of direct payments to the Kazakh budget constituted about $9.4 billion.

In addition, KPO's wage payments to Kazakh employees constituted approximately $0.81 billion.

While implementing its production activities, KPO relies on the principles of sustainable development. The company fully supports the initiatives of the Kazakh government in the issues of transition to "green economy."

Totally the amount of KPO investments in environmental activities since 1998 has constituted about $250 million.

KPO investments have a positive impact on the social reconstruction of western Kazakhstan as well. The company annually allocates $20 million in the implementation of social infrastructure projects in the Western Kazakhstan province.

As of today, the total amount of investments of KPO in the social sphere has exceeded $565 million, including the construction of Karachaganak-Uralsk gas pipeline, which was commissioned in late 2011.

Karachaganak is one of the world's largest fields. Its oil reserves amount to 1.2 billion tons, while those of natural gas - 1.35 trillion cubic meters. 49 percent of Kazakhstan's gas production and 18 percent of oil production comes from this field. BG Group has 29.25 percent in the project, while Eni holds 29.25 percent, Chevron - 18 percent, Lukoil - 13.5 percent and Kazakhstan -10 percent.