Page 18 - FSUOGM Week 02 2023

FSUOGM PROJECTS & COMPANIES FSUOGM

KMG launches major seismic

surveying push

KAZAKHSTAN KAZAKH state oil producer KazMunayGas auction in September 2022 – its fourth in the past
(KMG) plans to make major new investments in two years – the government sold exploration
Astana is seeking to exploration at five large onshore blocks, despite and development rights to 32 of the 34 blocks
expand exploration. the risk to its crude exports via Russia. on offer. As in previous contests, most of the
There has been an uptick in upstream inter- blocks were picked up by domestic bidders. Pay-
est among domestic players and some foreign ments for the rights totalled around KZT44bn
explorers recently, as Western oil majors scale ($95mn), which represented about 32 times
back and shift their focus to renewables. How- higher than the starting bids.
ever, many of the prospective projects are small In contrast to previous rounds, though, the
in scale, with the remaining potential for growth latest one attracted a major foreign investor –
production still located mainly at the country’s China’s Sinopec International, which pledged
three largest fields, Karachaganak, Kashagan and to pay over KZT1.3bn for rights to the Say-Utes
Tengiz. block, which spans around 2,8000 square km of
KMG has greenlit an investment of $64mn on the Mangistau region. In that area is the Arys-
obtaining extensive seismic data at the Bolashak, tanovskoye field, which already has a local oper-
North Ozen, Zharkyn, Mugadzhary and Bere- ator, but the deposit will be excluded from the
zovsky blocks between 2023 and 2025. These area given to Sinopec.
blocks are located in the Mangistau, Aktyubinsk Sinopec and other Chinese companies
and West Kazakhstan regions, which have seen already have a major footprint in Kazakh-
only limited exploration in recent years. stan, often by taking on projects that were
Results from the seismic surveys could pave formerly controlled by Western investors.
the way for new exploration and development Sinopec is an investor in the offshore Kasha-
contracts at prospective areas, KMG said. The gan field, and also fully owns the Caspian
sale of stakes in these projects and the marketing Investment Resources company that has
of the collected seismic data hopefully will ena- three onshore fields in Mangistau, which
ble KMG to recoup its investments, the company yielded 26,500 barrels per day (bpd) of oil in
said. 2022. Sinopec is additionally a 50-50 part-
Kazakhstan’s focus in recent years has been ner of KMG in the Kazakhoil Aktobe ven-
marketing off rights to small-scale potential pro- ture in Mangistau that produces 11,300 bpd
jects as well as idle fields. In the country’s latest of crude. ™

P18 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 02 11•January•2023