Promising areas in the Caspian which are under exploration
While making the rating, new discovered fields and structures, which are included into the state program of production of Caspian states and negotiations with investors, were taken into account. Dan Ulduzu, Ashrafi, Karabakh, Zafar, Mashal and Nakhchivan are related to such fields in the Azeri sector. In Kazakhstan sector it is N-Nursultan and Zhemchujina areas, in Turkmen sector it is Block 11-12 and Block 21.
The lack of free drilling units is one of the main common problems facing the Caspian operators. It hinders exploration, lowers its efficiency and increases project expenditures. BP is facing such problems at Shafag and Asiman. Korean Consortium of Korean companies has formerly faced this problem at Zhambyl, and Wintershall at Block 11-12. The rating of promising areas and new fields does not include fields jurisdiction of which is being negotiated by the Caspian countries or has not been declared officially yet. They are Kapaz-Sardar (AzerbaijanTurkmenistan) and Sardar-e Jangal (Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan).
According to the rating, Kazakhstan’s national company KazMunayGas is heading it. Azerbaijani company SOCAR is coming second. The third place has been taken by the Russian companies. Just like in case with the fields, national companies do not haste to diversify assets on promising structures for the entire offshore space of the Caspian, which would certainly have a positive impact on the efficiency of projects and construction of the corresponding oil-gas production and export infrastructure. As far as the leader of the rating is concerned, the legislation of Kazakhstan has officially secured no less than a 50% participation of KazMunayGas in all the Caspian projects. Despite the fact that the Company finds Kashagan as its main project at present, it actively works on the growth of the investment attractiveness of its promising structures. In particular, Kazakhstan already possesses an own fleet of self-hoisting and floating drilling rigs and aspires to establish a multivector export of energy resources. It is expected that the efficiency of development of Kashagan, the first in Kazakhstan and the only oil mega-field in the world, will promote activation of efforts of the national operation in attracting modern safe production technologies and strategic investments into its national sector of the Caspian Sea. Kazakhstan’s profits from the project on development of the Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea shelf in 2017 will total $180 mln. The field is producing 180,000 barrels per day. This figure will increase up to 370,000 barrels per day by the end of 2017. As a result, the project will start yielding net profits. Executive Vice President of KazMunayGas D.Karabayev told about it on April 27, 2017. Natural gas production grew by 13.7% up to 17.63bcm. Growth of coal production totaled 18.7%, up to 35.6mln tonnes.
