The vicious side of global warming is apparent to all and most of the nations are pledged to take possible measures on it. Oil drillers are widely criticized and pressurized to minimize their proven role in it. After decades of environmentalists’ battle with the government, now it seems that they are taking environmental damage seriously.
To curb the environmental damage at the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan government has issued stiff regulations on Eni-led foreign oil drillers group and threatens to suspend work at Kashagan offshore field.
Kazakhstan Picture Gallery
After the allegations, the group which is developing Kashagan, includes Eni, Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, Total, Inpex Holdings and with state owned KazMunaiGas, can face government wrath as it’s emulating new plans for Kashagan oil fields, which can arose worries for many foreign oil drillers.
Eni-led group has already faced government threats that the terms of its production sharing agreement to develop the field could be changed in favor of the government.
Although, threat unlikely to halt the development at the oil basin, yet it’ll definitely add pressure on the foreign companies during negotiations. Analysts analyzing Kazakhstan’s step is resemblance to one issued by the Russian government as it sought control of Royal Dutch Shell’s Sakhalin-2 oil and gas venture.
Valery Nesterov, oil and gas analyst at Troika Dialog in Russia said:
This is a kind of Sakhalin-2 situation. The Kazakh government will use this to change the terms in its favour. It is just another step increasing the pressure on the consortium
The Kashagan field, which was discovered in 2000 is one of the largest found in more than 30 years. Oil field is expected to produce 1.5m barrels per day by 2019. Kashagan oil field is difficult to develop and it will be interesting to see that will government firm on its environment friendly stance or will change with the time frame, to get maximum profit out of it, as other are doing.
Via: New York Times
