Asia Centrale, Caspio, Energia, Cina
M K Bhadrakumar
– L’ormai decennale progetto per l’estrazione di petrolio dagli enormi giacimenti kazaki al largo di Kashagan, nel Caspio, è finora costato oltre $30MD.
– Il giacimento conterrebbe oltre 10MD di barili di petrolio (incrementabili fino a 13 MD di barili) ma presenta difficoltà: è misto con gas solfidrico, si trova a circa 3650 metri sotto il livello del mare, che gela per diversi mesi l’anno.
– I gruppi che attualmente fanno parte del consorzio North Caspian Operating Company BV (NCOC) sono Exxon Mobil, Eni, Royal Dutch Shell.
– Il gruppo statale kazako, KazMunaiGaz (KMG), possiede circa il 20% di Kashagan.
– Eni partecipa con il 16,81% al progetto complessivo North Caspian SEA PSA, in cui rientra anche il giacimento gigante di Kashagan.
o Inizialmente ce ne erano altri tra cui Total SA, Statoil PLC, BP PLC e BG Group PLC, che si sono ma mano ritirati dopo il rinvio della prima produzione al 2008, e poi al 2010. Nel 2008, i costi previsti da Eni per la prima fase sono aumentati da meno di $10MD a $25,6MD; Eni è stata sostituita nello sviluppo del progetto dal consorzio NCOC.
– Nel 2003 Saipem, per il 43% di Eni, formò una joint venture con un gruppo in cui aveva quote un ex viceministro kazako all’energia, Kapparov, divenuto l’anno scorso ministro per l’ambiente.
o Dal 2003 i gruppi petroliferi, anche kazaki, hanno pagato a questa joint venture oltre $100mn. per progetti vari.
o Il corso indagini del governo italiano su eventuali tangenti pagate da Eni al Kazakistan.
– L’accordo di condivisione di produzione siglato nel 1997 dai vari gruppi petroliferi con il governo kazako termina nel 2014, senza una sua proroga, che il governo kazako non intende concedere, i gruppi rischiano di non intascare i profitti previsti ad inizio progetto.
– Ai prezzi attuali di $90/barile, i 370 000 b/g iniziali (che dovrebbero triplicare) darebbero incassi per $3 330 000/giorno.
– L’avvio dell’estrazione più volte rinviato soprattutto per le difficoltà tecniche, dovrebbe avvenire, secondo Eni a giugno 2013, ma solo nel 2014 darà risultati apprezzabili, secondo un rappresentante di KMG.
o Il plateau produttivo previsto da Eni è di 1,5 milioni di barili/giorno, con un incremento del 25% rispetto al target iniziale.
o Tramite l’Agip Kazakhstan North Caspian Operating Company N.V. (Agip KCO) Eni è responsabile dell’esecuzione della prima fase di sviluppo e della parte a terra della seconda fase di sviluppo.
– La produzione iniziale sarà gestita da Shell, in joint venture con KMG.
– Ulteriori rinvii oltre ottobre provocherebbero altre penalità finanziarie, oltre le decine di milioni di $ di concessioni pagate al governo kazako, e aumentare le tensioni con esso.
Nel progetto di Kashagan si inserisce la Cina:
– Per imporsi in Centro Asia, Pechino conduce negoziati bilaterali, non ha più bisogno della Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
– Negoziando con il Kazakistan, é riuscita a realizzare l’obiettivo che si era posta nel 2003: prendersi quote del progetto petrolifero di Kashagan, offrendo un prezzo più alto dell’India.
o Dopo la visita in Cina del presidente kazako, Nazarbayev, è emersa la volontà del
Kazakistan di usare il suo diritto di prelazione per bloccare l’accordo di vendita di quote possedute da ConocoPhilips (8,4%) nel progetto di Kashagan all’indiano Oil and Natural Gas Corp – ONGC (valore $5MD), rilevandole esso stesso per poi venderle ad un gruppo petrolifero cinese.
– April 18, 2013, 8:27 p.m. ET
A $30 Billion Hole in the Caspian Sea?
– After 10 Years, Setbacks Continue to Plague Massive Project to Find, Pump Oil in Kazakhstan
– The offshore Kashagan project is drilling for oil about 12,000 feet below the Caspian Sea floor.
– For more than a decade, the promised bonanza from Kazakhstan’s giant offshore Kashagan oil field has been a costly mirage for its developers. And the wait still isn’t over.
– The companies backing the project—which include Exxon Mobil Corp., Eni Spa and Royal Dutch Shell PLC—in March missed the startup date Eni predicted last year. And now, after a decade of work and more than $30 billion in expenses, it isn’t clear when one of the world’s biggest untapped fields will produce its first drop of oil.
– Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni said last month the operators "are going to begin production in June." A spokesman for the North Caspian Operating Company BV, which represents all of the oil companies in the project, says "we are confident that we will deliver oil in the course of this year," though he said he isn’t sure when. A person close to KazMunaiGas, or KMG, the Kazakh state oil company that owns close to 20% of Kashagan, said it may be 2014 before significant amounts of oil flow.
– Delays beyond Oct. 1 could subject the companies to new financial penalties on top of tens of millions of dollars worth of concessions they have already given the Kazakh government for missing earlier deadlines and cost overruns, according to energy consultancy IHS CERA.
– Setbacks could also heighten tensions with a frustrated Kazakh government, say several people close to the project—and will make it difficult for the firms to make more than a marginal profit from their investments.
– Kashagan is an example of the challenges energy companies face in a world where the easy oil has already been pumped.
– To find big new fossil-fuel deposits, companies must look in places that are remote, technically challenging or politically thorny, making huge upfront investments for uncertain returns. In Kashagan, cold weather, difficult supply routes and friction with government officials have contributed to the lag time.
– A spokesman for the North Caspian Operating Company said the biggest cause of delays is Kashagan’s technical complexity and a cautious approach by the companies to avoid problems like oil or gas leaks.
– Kashagan’s potential upside is enormous, said Laurent Ruseckas, a consultant with IHS CERA who advises companies in Kashagan. Oil is now trading at close to $90 a barrel, and the 370,000 barrels a day Kashagan is projected to produce in its first phase is supposed to triple as companies make further investments. [=$3 330 000/giorno à x3 à $9 990 000]
– But technical challenges and strained relationships among the operating companies and with the Kazakh government have made the project "a nightmare for almost 10 years," said Fadel Gheit, an oil-company analyst with Oppenheimer & Co.
– When production does start, it will largely be in Shell’s hands, since a joint venture between Shell and KMG is operating that phase, according to the companies. A spokesman for Shell declined to comment. KMG didn’t respond to requests to comment.
– Kashagan’s challenges were evident from the time big oil companies—including Eni, Exxon, Shell, Total SA, Statoil PLC, BP PLC and BG Group PLC—explored the area after the Soviet Union’s breakup. Companies signed a production-sharing agreement with the Kazakh government in 1997 that expires in 2041 and allows companies to recover much of their costs before paying a big portion of oil revenue to the government.
– Of the initial foreign oil-company players, only Eni, Exxon, Total and Shell remain.
– Early exploration revealed more than 10 billion recoverable barrels of oil—along with great challenges. The reservoir is about 12,000 feet below the northeast Caspian Sea floor and mixed with toxic sulfur gas. The sea freezes for several months a year, requiring companies to build concrete drilling islands since the deep freeze would destroy normal offshore equipment. The north Caspian harbors endemic seals and rare sturgeon.
– The companies debated who would take the project’s lead, settling on Eni, though it had less experience with giant oil developments than Shell and Exxon. The companies projected first oil in 2005, though Eni soon began pushing back the projected startup date due to technical problems.
– Workers at the main processing hub for the Kashagan project last year. pected when the project began.
– Missteps, cost overruns and controversies have dogged the project.
– Eni has disclosed in public filings that Italian authorities are investigating whether it has paid bribes in Kazakhstan. An Eni spokeswoman said the company "has zero tolerance towards illegal acts and bribery" and is fully cooperating with the authorities.
– In 2003, Saipem SpA —a company in which Eni owns about 43%—formed a joint venture with a company co-owned by a former Kazakh deputy energy minister, Nurlan Kapparov. Last year Mr. Kapparov became Kazakhstan’s minister of environmental protection.
– Oil companies including the Kashagan operators have since 2003 awarded more than $100 million in contracts to the joint venture for projects like building pipe racks and rigs for Kashagan and other Kazakh oil projects.
– In an email, the Kazakh Ministry of Environmental Protection said Mr. Kapparov resigned from his management positions at his company when he became environment minister, and that his shares are in a trust that Mr. Kapparov doesn’t control.
– The joint venture "is regularly checked by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, but Minister Kapparov has never taken any role in the review," the ministry said.
– The Eni spokeswoman said Saipem "has always been managed at arm’s length" from Eni. She said the joint venture received the Kashagan work after a competitive bid process. A Saipem spokesman declined to comment.
– Meanwhile, some partners such as BP, Statoil and BG sold their stakes in Kashagan, as Eni pushed back its first oil production to 2008, and then to 2010. The Kazakh government briefly suspended construction in 2007 over environmental concerns. By 2008, Eni’s projected budget for the project’s first phase had risen from less than $10 billion to $25.6 billion, according to IHS CERA.
– That year, the companies renegotiated the management structure, taking Eni out of the lead role and putting North Caspian Operating Company, in which each company has a voting stake, in charge of development. The Kazakh government imposed increased penalties on the companies for production delays beyond October and said it would no longer sign production-sharing agreements that let companies recoup most costs before paying large percentages of profit to the state.
– Since then development has progressed and the companies finished drilling their production wells last year. But they have continued to delay oil production amid technical problems.
– Perhaps most significantly, the Kazakh government hasn’t agreed to extend the Kashagan companies’ production-sharing agreement past its 2041 expiration, according to the person close to KMG and a consultant advising companies in Kashagan. Without the extension, it would be difficult for the companies to make the profits that they expected when the project began.
Write to Justin Scheck at justin.scheck@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared April 19, 2013, on page B1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Drilling a $30 Billion Hole in Caspian Sea?.
India Punchline 130417
China trumps India in Kashagan deal
By M K Bhadrakumar
Like the White Paper on the People’s Liberation Army that was brought out in Beijing earlier in the week, if only the Chinese government would share its wisdom on the ABC of doing business in the Central Asian region, that will be definite proof of ‘win-win’ cooperation.
– The Kazakhstan president Nurusultan Nazarbayev visited China ten days ago and he apparently came back as a firm believer in the Chinese Dream. And now it emerges that ConocoPhilips’s equity stakes in the great Kashagan oil fields, which it wanted to sell in a $5 billion deal to India’s ONGC, may instead go to a Chinese company.
– Funnily, Kazakhstan already holds stakes in Kashagan, but would exercise its sovereign prerogative to block the proposed ConocoPhilitps-ONGC deal by stepping in and acquiring Conoco-Philips’ stakes and thereafter handing it over to an unnamed Chinese company on a silver platter just like that.
What prompted Nazarbayev to take this extraordinary decision, only he — and his Chinese interlocutors in Sanya — would know. Obviously, as far as New Delhi is concerned, it is not a friendly act by Nazarbayev. Let us hope he has a last-minute change of heart (which is improbable, though.)
Once again, what surfaces is the Chinese companies’ sleazy business culture and their mastery of the art of touching the rulers in Central Asia precisely where it sends them into raptures. Beijing no longer needs the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
– Doing business in Central Asia will remain difficult so long as the decision-making process in that region remains opaque and whimsical. Having said that, what I fail to understand is why such a setback is happening within an year of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s celebrated visit to Kazkhstan.
This seems the familiar story of our failure to follow up diligently on the business openings generated during high level exchanges. Besides, Kazakh side probably were left out of the ConocoPhilips-ONGC deal. We should have anticipated the need to keep the Kazakh authorities in good humour. This is where China scores — they acquire the Kashagan stakes by making the Kazkah side feel happy.
Yet another thing must be said in praise of China — its perseverence. Simply put, China set its mind a decade ago in 2003 that it shall acquire stakes in Kashagan and it kept pecking at it until the magic potion worked in Sanya.
– China would be paying a higher price than what ONGC was intending to spend in acquiring the ConocoPhilips stakes — taking into account the kickbacks, etc. It only goes to show the extent to which the Chinese would go to acquire energy assets abroad.
Tagged with ConocoPhilips, Nurusultan Nazarbayev.
– ———————–
– 16/04/2013 09.15 Economia
– FTA Online News
– La Cina sarebbe interessata a rilevare la quota detenuta dalla statunitense ConocoPhilips nel consorzio internazionale, di cui Eni è operatore fino al primo olio, nel giacimento petrolifero giant del Kashagan. E’ quanto ha dichiarato il ministro del petrolio e del gas del Kazakistan Sauat Mynbayen, precisando che la decisione non è stata ancora presa ma la possibilità esiste. Il governo kazako ha un diritto di prelazione per rilevare l’8,4% che la magior americana intende vendere. Lo stesso diritto ce l’hanno anche gli altri soci del consorzio. A fine novembre, quando emerse l’interesse per la stessa quota da parte dell’indiana Oil and Natural Gas Corp, Paolo Scaroni, AD del cane a sei zampe, aveva affermato che Eni non avrebbe esercitato il diritto di prelazione sulla quota della ConocoPhilips.
– (EP)
– —————
– Da sito Eni
– Kashagan – Isola artificiale D – Tecnico sul ponte
– Nell’ambito del North Caspian Sea PSA, in cui Eni partecipa con il 16,81%, nel luglio 2000 è avvenuta una delle scoperte più importanti degli ultimi trent’anni. Si tratta del giacimento gigante di Kashagan, situato 80 km a sud-est di Atyrau (Kazakhstan), nel Mar Caspio settentrionale. Appartengono a quest’area offshore anche i campi di Kashagan South West, Kalamkas, Aktote e Kairan.
– Nel gennaio 2009 è stato introdotto un nuovo modello operativo che prevede una joint operating company (NCOC, i cui azionisti sono i partner del consorzio internazionale nel North Caspian Sea PSA), riconosce un maggiore ruolo al partner Kazakho e ripartisce tra i principali partner internazionali l’esecuzione delle fasi del progetto.
– In particolare, tramite l’Agip Kazakhstan North Caspian Operating Company N.V. (Agip KCO) Eni è responsabile dell’esecuzione della prima fase di sviluppo e della parte a terra della seconda fase di sviluppo.
– Il piano di sviluppo di Kashagan prevede la messa in produzione, in fasi successive, di riserve pari a 7-9 miliardi di barili, incrementabili fino a 13 miliardi mediante la reiniezione parziale del gas.
– Nel medio termine la produzione di idrocarburi di Eni nel Paese è attesa in crescita per effetto del contributo dello sviluppo della produzione di gas di Karachaganak e dell’avvio di Kashagan.
– Lo schema di progetto per Kashagan comprende la realizzazione di centri di produzione (hub) localizzati su piattaforme e isole artificiali, che raccoglieranno la produzione proveniente da altre isole artificiali satelliti dalle quali saranno perforati i pozzi.
– Lo schema di processo della prima fase prevede che il petrolio e la parte di gas non reiniettato saranno sottoposti a un primo trattamento nel centro di produzione offshore e successivamente inviati in linee separate agli impianti di trattamento a terra presso Bolashak, nelle vicinanze di Atyrau. Qui, il petrolio sarà ulteriormente stabilizzato e depurato; il gas trattato per la rimozione dell’acido solfidrico sarà utilizzato come fuel per fornire l’energia necessaria agli impianti di produzione e in parte sarà commercializzato.
– La realizzazione della prima fase di sviluppo prosegue con l’impiego delle più avanzate tecnologie per far fronte alle elevate pressioni in giacimento, alla presenza di acido solfidrico in concentrazioni elevate e alle complesse condizioni ambientali. A fine ottobre 2010 lo stato di avanzamento del progetto è pari a circa l’80% ed il “first oil‘ è previsto nel dicembre 2012.
– Con le successive fasi di sviluppo si prevede di raggiungere un plateau produttivo di 1,5 milioni di barili/giorno, con un incremento del 25% rispetto al target iniziale.
Nell’ambito del programma di valutazione delle numerose scoperte effettuate nell’Area Contrattuale del NCS PSA, si è conclusa con successo la perforazione dei pozzi di appraisal delle strutture di Aktote, Kairan e Kalamkas.