"Today the first batch of export oil of the Kashagan field, within extracted balancing and commissioning in quantity about 7,700 tons was shipped to a pipeline system. Also the batch of export oil in number of 18,800 tons was shipped to a pipeline system of the JSC “KazTransOil”, and 22.8 million cubic meters of commodity gas was sent to the pipeline system of the JSC “Intergas Central Asia," the message says.

As the ministry reports the North Caspian consortium started commissioning and testing of the equipment on the sea and land complex on September 28, 2016.

Oil production was stopped in Kashagan on September, 2013 because of gas leakage. Another leakage was found almost right after renewal of production on October, 2013. The analysis which was carried out within several months revealed numerous microcracks in the pipeline which appeared as a result of impact on metal of associated gas with the high content of sulfur.

General oil reserves is about 38 billion barrels, from them about 10 billion barrels of which have already been extracted. There are also large reserves of natural gas in Kashagan which makes more than 1 trillion cubic meters.

During the first days it was extracted about 40,000 barrels of oil per day.

Development of the Kashagan field will be performed in several stages. Now implementation of the Stage 1, also known as "The program of trial development" is conducted. The subsequent stages are being planned.

The article is taken from http://bnews.kz/en/news/ekonomika/promishlennost/the_first_batch_of_export_oil_shipped_in_kashagan-2016_10_14-1293618