Kazakhstan starts construction of Kenkiyak - Atyrau oil pipeline

/REUTERS, Astana, Raushan Nurshaeva, May 22, 02/ - Kazakhstan starts on May 23 construction of oil pipeline Kenkiyak - Atyrau with total cost of $190 million that will allow to connect fields of rich of oil Atyrau and Aktobe oblasts with export main lines Atyrau - Samara and Tengiz - Novorosiisk (CPC), said REUTERS the representative of the company Kazmunaigas. Construction of oil pipeline Kenkiyak - Atyrau with the length of 448.8 kilometers is a first stage in construction of transcontinental main oil pipeline from western Kazakhstan to western China. "For ten years of independence of the republic it is one of the biggest projects with direct participation of Kazakhstan," said the representative. Projecting, financing, construction and exploitation of oil pipeline will be performed by Northwestern company MunaiTas CJSC, its founders are national oil and gas company Kazmunaigas and Chinese national oil company International in Kazakhstan. The project financing will be made by Chinese national oil company controlling oil-extracting enterprise Aktobemunaigas, and Kazakhstan KazTransOil that is a subsidiary of Kazmunaigas. "Last year financers of our company held an excellent work on floatation of eurobonds of KazTransOil for $150 million and these funds will be used in the project Kenkiyak - Atyrau," said the representative. It is expected that capacity of the first line with cost of $160 million will account for six million tons of oil annually; it is planned that it will be put into operation in December of this year already. The second line operation of which has been planned for the year 2004 will allow to pump annually ten million tons of oil. The third line with capacity of 14 million tons of oil will be put into operation in the year 2006. The general contractor of the pipeline construction diameter of which will be 24 inches is determined in the result of tender as Russian company Stroytransgas. Subcontractor of Kenkiyak - Atyrau will be Kazstroyservice, a subsidiary of Kazmunaigas. [2002-05-22]