Kashagan oil to go to Europe in circumvention of Russia

According to KazTransOil (KTO), Inpex North Caspian Sea Ltd., a stakeholder (7.563%) of North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC) is going to send its oil to Europe via the port of Aktau and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC). NCOC is the consortium that operates the Kashagan oil field.

«From a technical point of view, we can export 6.2 million tons of oil a year via Aktau. So far, the port has booked part of its capacity for 1.5 million tons of oil that Tengizchevroil wants to export via the Trans-Caspian route toward the BTC. Inpex from the Kashagan project also wants us to send its oil via this route. The company has already dispatched railcars filled with oil to the port of Aktau. This month we are expecting to load 7,000 tons of oil,» said a KTO representative during a meeting with investors.

He also noted that the company hopes that the 1.5 million tons of Tengiz oil will also be shipped via Aktau, although some external factors may prevent this plan from happening.

«This year, we were supposed to export 1.5 million tons of Tengiz oil via the port of Aktau. Having said that, we haven’t done this due to quakes in Turkey. There are just two oil terminals in Ceyhan. One of them is out of duty and the other is occupied with oil from Azerbaijan,» he said.

So far, almost all oil produced at Kashagan and Tengiz goes to the port of Novorossiiys via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium. However, the unstable work of the pipeline last year and now, makes oil companies think about potential alternative export routes.

NCOC has been extracting oil from the Kashagan field since 2016. There are several stakeholders of the company including KMG Kashagan B.V. (16.877%), Shell Kazakhstan Development B.V. (16.807%), Total EP Kazakhstan (16.807%), Agip Caspian Sea B.V. (16.807%), ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Inc. (16.807%), CNPC Kazakhstan B.V. (8.333%) and Inpex NorthCaspian Sea Ltd. (7.563%).

Tengizchevroil operates at the two giant oil fields Tengiz and Korolevskoe in the Atyrau region of Kazakhstan. The company is controlled by Chevron (50%), ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Ventures Inc. (25%), KazMunayGas (20%) and Lukarco (5%).