Kazakhstan to sign agreement on Kashagan till the end of the week

/REUTERS, Astana, Raushan Nurshaeva, text - Maria Gordeeva, Editor - Ann Smirniva, October 28, 08/ - Government of Kazakhstan hopes to sign agreement on digging Kashagan deposit with the participants of consortium till the end of the week on terms, discussed in July 2008, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Suat Mynbaev said to journalists. "We agreed on all issues and hope to sign it at the end of the week. That means we haven't negotiation" - Mynbaev said. "There are four big agreements. They are all discussed" - he added. American Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips, Britain-Holland Royal Dutch Shell, French Total, Japanese Inpex Holdings Inc. enter consortium, headed by Eni. The renewed PSA is supposed to comprise the article, according to which Kazakhstan may reject to cover consortium's expenditures, if oil production won't start before October 1, 2013. Changes in PSA and corresponding negotiations with shareholders on new digging conditions were supposed to finish before October 25. Agreement was supposed to be signed by all representatives of consortium. Government and shareholders plan to describe parts of all the companies in the new structure. Earlier, representatives of KazMunaiGaz told Reuters that deposit-digging project is supposed to be divided on several parts. Thus, Kazakhstan government and consortium of investors want to divide responsibility of major partners for separate parts of the project. According to Mynbaev, agreement was not changed much. "After July, there is no significant changes" - he said, noting that the term of production was not also reviewed. Besides, the head of Ministry of Energy admitted the information that the budget of the project remained at $136 bn. "There is no changes in the budget" - Mynbaev said. The state company KazMunaiGaz gained increasing of its stake to 16.81 % in January 2008, what is the stake of major participant. At the end of June, the government agreed to the shareholders` offer on postponing the start of production on deposit to 2013 and reviewing the conceptual issuers of PSA. Then 2014 was the time by which production should be started, though initially it was planned in 2005. Geological oil reserves of Kashagan make 3-4 bn. barrels, today there is an experimental program, which will allow to produce to 450.000 barrels a day. [2008-10-28]