RUSSIANS WIN KAZAKH PIPE PRIZE
Upstream, 17.05.2002
STG to build $170 million Kazakhstan crude line.
Russia's largest pipeline builder Stroytransgaz (STG) has won a tender to construct a 120,000 barrel–per–day pipeline that will link the Kenkiyak oilfield in the north–east of Kazakhstan with the oil capital of Atyrau, according to company officials.
The pipeline will be jointly owned by Kazakh national oil and gas producing and transportation monopoly KazMunaigaz and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), which is a chief shareholder in 65,000–bpd oil producer Aktobemunaigaz.
Aktobemunaigaz holds the development licence for the Kenkiyak field. Despite good reserves in-place, the producer has had to restrict output because it can only pump oil through a Soviet–built pipeline to the nearby Orsknefteorgsintez refinery in Russia.
STG officials said the company faces a difficult task because it will have to built 448 kilometres of line within the next five months. After construction is completed, Aktobemunaigaz will be able to ship production to Atyrau where it will be diverted into the trunk export pipeline run by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.
The CPC pipeline allows Kazakh producers to ship oil to Western markets through an export terminal near Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.
STG officials estimated construction costs at around $170 million. According to the preliminary plan, around 70% of pipes will be supplied by Russia's Volga Pipeline Plant while the rest will come from unidentified Chinese manufacturers.
Besides the pipe from Kenkiyak, CPC expects another pipeline to join the export system in Atyrau in 2003. This one is already under construction from the giant Karachaganak gas condensate field in western Kazakhstan.
Vladimir Afanasiev
