http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2540321.stm BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Wednesday, 4 December, 2002, 09:31 GMT
Huge oil find 'threatens Caspian' By Alex Kirby BBC News Online environment correspondent in Atyrau, Kazakhstan Western oil companies are poised to start developing a field near here which experts believe is the world's largest. But Kazakh scientists say pumping out the oil, at Kashagan, threatens the northern Caspian with catastrophe. The oil beneath Kashagan is a genie in a bottle -- Prof Muftach Diarov They say earthquakes in this seismically active region could wreak havoc as the submarine reservoirs are drained. And they want the developers to agree to scale back production significantly. The Kashagan field, about 70 kilometres (45 miles) from Atyrau, is believed to contain about 40 billion barrels of oil, 10 billion of them recoverable. 'Wild East' One barrel contains 45 gallons, enough to fill the tanks of three family saloon cars. Experts say a one-billion-barrel field is considered huge, and Kashagan is being compared with some of the largest Saudi Arabian fields. World War Two oil tanks still dot the Caspian shore The Western companies involved in the consortium preparing to exploit Kashagan include Agip of Italy, British Gas, the US giant ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalFinaElf. The region around Atyrau, a city of 200,000 people which sits almost 30 metres below sea level, is known as central Asia's Wild East. The Caspian is a formidable challenge for the oil companies. The southern part of the sea is up to 1,000 m deep, and the central belt lies about 4-500 m down. But the northern basin averages little more than 10 m in depth, although high winds can temporarily alter the sea level over wide areas. Sturgeon concern Agip has commissioned special shallow-draught icebreakers, capable of operating in 2 m of water, for winter use. The companies cannot use traditional drilling rigs, and have to build artificial islands to extract the oil. Many Kazakhs oppose the exploitation of Kashagan, fearing it will worsen health problems in the area by increasing air pollution. They say its position, in the mouth of the Ural river which divides Europe from Asia, will push the prized wild Caspian sturgeon closer to extinction. Some fear a more cataclysmic threat from Kashagan. Professor Muftach Diarov, a geologist who heads Atyrau's Oil and Gas Institute, is a member of Kazakhstan's national academy of sciences. 'No risk' The oil in Kashagan and elsewhere in the north Caspian, he says, "is pressurised to1,000 atmospheres and is at 100 to 120 C. "The problem is that we do not have enough experience to work under such extreme conditions." Beyond that, Professor Diarov fears that emptying the oil and gas from their reservoirs beneath the Caspian's bed could trigger devastating earthquakes. He says tremors elsewhere in the Caspian have already been felt near Atyrau, and could also destabilise the Kashagan reservoirs. Professor Diarov told BBC News Online: "The oil beneath Kashagan is a genie in a bottle - it's a bomb. Sooner or later it will explode, and everything in the north Caspian will be damaged. "We know what to expect from a fire in the Tenghiz field south of here, operated by a consortium which includes ChevronTexaco. "That burnt for more than a year, and caused damage over a 300 km radius. I've told Agip and Chevron of my fears. But oil dollars always win." Professor Diarov said Russia, which has a similar field close to the Kazakh frontier, had decided "wisely" to reduce production to 25% of the attainable level, because "they understand they have to go slowly. And Kazakhstan should do the same." A spokesman for TengizChevroil, exploiting the Tenghiz field, told BBC News Online: "Our geologists say there is no risk right now that distant tremors could set off disturbances here." http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18894/story.htm Kazakhs slap $70mln ecology fine on Chevron venture KAZAKHSTAN: December 5, 2002 ALMATY - A court in Kazakhstan has fined ChevronTexaco-led oil venture Tengizchevroil (TCO) 11 billion tenge ($71 million) for "ecological damage" caused by storing millions of tonnes of sulphur at its Tengiz field. The fine is the latest in a series of blows to TCO, the highest profile joint venture in Kazakhstan, whose energy-based economy is heavily dependent on foreign investment. TCO said it was "very disappointed" and was considering an appeal. "According to our data, this sulphur negatively affects the environment," Turaly Onerbayev, regional representative of the natural resources and environmental protection ministry, told Reuters yesterday from the Central Asian state's oil capital Atyrau in western Kazakhstan. TCO, a 40-year, multi-billion project and until now a showcase of successful foreign investment, was prompt to react. "Tengizchevroil is very disappointed with the decision made by the Atyrau Oblast (Regional) Court," it said in a statement. "Tengizchevroil is now considering an appeal of the court's decision in the Supreme Court of Kazakhstan," a TCO spokesman told Reuters by telephone from Atyrau. Onerbayev said the regional court had ruled that Tengizchevroil lacked permission to store some six million tonnes of sulphur at the site. Tengiz crude has an extremely high sulphur content, and the sulphur is separated out at the field and stored there. TCO said it viewed sulphur as a product, not a waste, and "the materials temporarily stored at Tengizchevroil facilities, including sulphur, are stored and handled in accordance with Kazakhstan's state standards and international standards". TCO has repeatedly said it is looking to export its sulphur, stored in giant yellow blocks, each the size of several soccer fields. Sulphur can be used for road buidling and fertilisers. "There is no evidence of any significant environmental impact from the storage of sulphur," the TCO statement said. CHILLY RELATIONS The court ruling is only the latest in a series of troubles between TCO and the Kazakh state. Last month TCO halted work on an ambitious $3 billion expansion project following a row over how to fund it. The expansion will nearly double TCO's output to 22 million tonnes (440,000 barrels per day) from this year's expected 12.7 million tonnes (254,000 bpd). TCO wants to pay for it by reinvesting revenues from current and future production. But the government wanted it to raise additional financing through external borrowing, and to continue paying taxes on its crude export revenues. The authorities say this would allow it to maintain the current level of payments to the budget. TCO now accounts for 12 to 15 percent of all state budget revenues. Energy Minister Vladimir Shkolnik said recently that the expansion plan would remain on hold until the row was resolved. Officials say the state could lose an average $200 million in unpaid taxes per year until 2006 if foreign partners in TCO reinvest their profits in the expansion. TCO, set up in 1993, is developing the giant Tengiz onshore field, sitting on an oil column almost a mile thick. Its recoverable reserves are put at six to nine billion barrels. Tengiz is the main source of crude for the new Caspian Pipeline Consortium from Tengiz to Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, the first private link in the former Soviet Union. TCO is led by U.S. ChevronTexaco with 50 percent. Kazakh state energy company KazMunaiGaz holds 20 percent, ExxonMobil 25 percent, and LUKArco five percent. Story by Dmitry Solovyov REUTERS NEWS SERVICE Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
