Eni, an Italian multinational energy company headquartered in Rome, has officially notified Kazakhstan of its decision to withdraw from the Isatay and Abay offshore projects in the Caspian Sea, as reported by PetroCouncil.
Previously, Isatay Operating Company LLC, jointly controlled by KazMunayGas (KMG) and Eni Isatay B.V., a subsidiary of Eni, on an equal basis, returned ownership of the Isatay field to the government. This decision followed geological exploration that deemed the oil and gas field commercially nonviable.
The two oil companies established their joint venture in 2017 to develop the promising, as many thought, Isatay and Abay fields in Kazakhstan’s sector of the Caspian Sea.
The Isatay field is located in the northeastern part of the sector, 45 kilometers from the Buzachi Peninsula. The size of the geological allotment was 1,343 square kilometers. Water depth at Isatay ranges from two to seven meters.
Isatay Operating Company was established on December 27, 2017, to operate the Isatay field on behalf of the aforementioned subsoil users under a contract signed on June 26, 2015. Four years later, on July 26, 2019, the company was authorized to explore and produce oil at the Abay field. Both contracts were signed with the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan, KMG and Eni Isatay B.V.
The Isatay field was returned to the state in March 2023, before the contract’s expiration on June 25, 2023. This decision was made after seismic analysis and exploratory drilling confirmed that further development of the field was not commercially viable.
The oil exploration and production contract for the Abay field in Kazakhstan’s sector of the Caspian Sea was originally set to last 31 years, including six years of exploration, with the possibility of extending this trial period by nine years for further assessment and trial exploitation. After that, a 25-year production cycle, including a three-year preparation period, was supposed to proceed. The Abay field, covering 1,233.9 square kilometers, is located in the northeastern part of Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea sector, 160 kilometers from Bautino. The water depth there ranges from six to nine meters.
