Kashagan oil field production to resume in autumn

Production at Kazakhstan’s massive Kashagan oil field is to resume in the autumn more than two years after a gas leak took it out of commission, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) announced this week. Discovered over a decade ago, the Caspian Sea field has estimated total recoverable  oil reserves of 13 billion barrels, but work on the  field had to be halted in 2013 less than a month after it came on stream due to leaks from the sour gas pipeline that were attributed to a high concentration of corrosive hydrogen sulphide.
 Located 80 kilometres from Atyrau in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, the developing the field entailed the construction of  artificial islands a total investment of  approximately $50bn. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium is jointly owned and operated by Shell (16.81%), Exxon Mobil (16.81%), Total (16.81%), CNPC (8.33%)  KazMunaiGas (16.81%), INPEX (7.56%) and AgipKCO (Eni) (16.81%).