Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Members of the North Caspian Consortium and the Kazakh government have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Kashagan project's future development and exploration.

The news was announced by the North Caspian Operating Company, the operator of the North Caspian Sea Project (Kashagan field).

The parties agreed to discuss the local content and manufacturing capabilities of the project.

The North Caspian Consortium consists of KMG Kashagan BV, AGIP Caspian Sea BV, CNPC Kazakhstan BV, Exxon Mobil Kazakhstan Inc., INPEX North Caspian Sea Ltd., Shell Kazakhstan Development BV, and Total E & P Kazakhstan.

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.