Presentation
Kashagan Participates in Ensuring the Needs of Kazakhstan in Natural Gas
The national operator of the RK in gas and gas supply area - KazTransGas - will receive up to 3 additional billion cubic meters per year of Kashagan gas. Thus, the supply of sales gas from Kashagan will use those volumes of local natural gas to cover the requirements of Kazakhstan market in natural gas.
For more on this, as well as on the main events in the gas industry of the country we talked with the General Director of KTG, Serik Sultangali.
- Serik Sultangaliuly, please tell us, has an agreement already been reached with the participants of the consortium for Kashagan field development?
- Yes. We have signed a long-term contract for associated gas buy and sale with contracting companies of the North Caspian project. From now on we plan to send a large part of Kashagan natural gas to the South of the Republic. It should happen next year right after putting in operation the Beineu-Bozoi-Shymkent gas line.
By the way, one of the sections of this pipeline - Bozoi-Shymkent - has already been put in operation. The Kazakhstan and China Heads of State participated in its official launch ceremony in early September. We aim at using for domestic consumption the entire volume of gas pumped through this pipe from Aktyubinsk fields, particularly for the needs of the Southern Kazakhstan regions. Of course, we don’t exclude exports in the future but the priority for us will always be the domestic market.
Currently Bozoi-Shymkent allows transporting 2.5 billion m3 of gas per a year. After putting in operation the main compressor station Bozoi, the throughput capacity of the pipeline will reach 6 billion m3. But after connecting to Beineu in 2015 we will reach the rated capacity of 10 billion m3 per year.
It should be noted that the new pipeline even now gives a possibility to supply gas to more than 500 communities along it. Only in the South Kazakhstan region there are about three hundred such places, where more than 1 million and 200 thousand people live.
BBSh is a strategically important project according to the energy security of the State. Completion of construction of the pipeline with a length of 1477 km will allow combining the main gas pipelines of the Republic to a single gas transportation system. It fully meets the long-term needs of Kazakhstan. The construction cost of the BBSh pipeline is 3.6 billion USD. About four thousand people are involved in the pipeline construction, 90% of them being Kazakhstan specialists.
I am confident that this project will allow to completely get rid of gas imports to the South of our country. And Kashagan gas will play not the last part in this process.
- What specific benefits will bring to Kazakhstan the signing of a contract for buy and sale of the gas produced in the Kashagan field between your company and contractor companies for production sharing agreement within the North Caspian project?
- First of all, the State places Kashagan gas under its control. After all, under the terms of the signed contract, KazTransGas JSC as the national operator in the gas and gas supply area will acquire the whole volume of Kashagan gas until the expiration of the PSA within the NC project, i. e. 2042.
In other words, Kazakhstan will start having an extra resource for a stable supply of natural gas to the domestic market for up to 3 billion cubic meters per a year. This is a very important aspect, particularly against the background of the fact that today in the Republic among all the subsoil users, i. e. more than 90 companies, only 16 have a tie-in to the main gas pipelines.
Secondly, economic and social benefits of this decision are obvious. Let’s take at least small and medium enterprises. It is known that deficit or high cost of energy supply hinder its full development. Kashagan gas, to a certain extent, will solve this problem. Anyway, new productions and jobs will appear, and budget contributions will increase in those regions where the natural gas from Kashagan will come in with a fair price. I am ready to predict it with a100% probability. After all, where there is gas, there is life.