Western Sanctions Hinder Work on Caspian Field

Western sanctions have delayed work on the Tsentralnoye offshore field in the Caspian Sea, The Times of Asia reports the president of Russian oil company Lukoil, Vagit Alekperov, as saying. The field is jointly being developed by Russia’s Lukoil and Gazprom and Kazakhstan’s KazMunayGas.   

“We now cannot receive a drilling rig [for Tsentralnoye] because it belongs to non-Russian companies," Mr. Alekperov told Russia’s Rossiya-24 television channel last week when commenting on his company’s work on Tsentralnoye field. "It is illogical to build a drilling rig for a single well, so Gazprom and we [Lukoil] have paused—we will wait until either drilling rigs are available or the sanctions are lifted,” .   

According to Gazprom’s website, the Tsentralnoye field project, located in Kazakhstan, is targeted at prospecting and exploring hydrocarbon resources of the Tsentralnoye geological structure in the Caspian Sea. The project was launched in 2003 when a joint venture called Neftegazovaya Kompaniya Tsentralnoye was created between Gazprom (25%), Lukoil (25%), and Kazakhstan’s national oil and gas company KazMunayGas (50%).

Construction of the first prospecting well, with a depth of 4,227 metres, was completed during the project’s execution.

A large oil, gas, and condensate field was discovered in the Tsentralnoye structure in 2008. 

In late 2008 TsentrCaspneftegaz carried out a 3D seismic survey.

The field’s C1 and C2 reserves are estimated at 20.2 and 149 million tons of fuel equivalent respectively.

In October 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a protocol amending the intergovernmental agreement delimiting the borders of the Caspian Sea bed. The protocol allows the joint venture of Gazprom, Lukoil and KazMunayGas to receive licences for the geological exploration and development of the Tsentralnoye offshore field.