Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Stephane de Mahieu, an ExxonMobil Secondee has succeeded Pierre Offant as NCOC's Managing Director.

NCOC is the operator of a project on development of Kazakhstan's giant Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea.

"The change of Kashagan project from a development operation to a production one provides an opportunity to further integrate and organize its activities for implementing North Caspian Sea Production Sharing Agreement (NCSPSA) on more resource developments. To take advantage of this opportunity, the NCSPSA shareholders have agreed to work towards a progressive transition from the current operating model to a single consolidated joint-venture company," NCOC said.

The single consolidated joint-venture will operate under a single corporate management system, which integrates existing processes and tools from different venture entities.

"It is expected that the name of the single consolidated joint-venture company will be North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC)," the company noted.

"Integrating and consolidating the companies will start this year. The activities associated with establishing the single operating company will not affect the pipeline repair activities, preparations for the production restart, or completion of the remaining Phase 1 scope. The current operating model will continue under the existing management teams until changes are formally announced," NCOC said.

Most of the staff of the single operating company will be accommodated in Atyrau. Personnel who interact with government officials will be based in Astana.

No changes to the PSA and /or the NCSPSA ownership structure are expected as a result of the planned transition.

Earlier it was reported that the U.S. ExxonMobil Company may become the new operator of development of the Kashagan field. However, ExxonMobil have not yet commented on this issue.

With recoverable oil reserves estimated at 13 billion barrels, the Kashagan field is believed to be the largest oil field in the world after Prudo Bay in Alaska. Its natural gas reserves are also estimated at over 1 trillion cubic meters.

The Kashagan shareholders are Eni, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, France's Total and Kazakh state oil company KazMunaiGas (KMG), each with 16.8 percent, and Japan's Inpex and China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) as junior partners.

Oil production in the field started on September 11, 2013. However, operations had to be stopped on September 24 due to a gas leak in the onshore section of the gas pipeline running from Island D to the Bolashak onshore processing facility.

The Department of Emergency Situations was immediately briefed on the regulations. Production was resumed, but stopped again on October 9 after the detection of another gas leak.

The commercial production at the field is expected to be resumed in late 2015.