The head of the company running Kazakhstan's giant Tengiz oil field said on Friday he hopes to rely on a pipeline through Russia as output nearly doubles in the next two years -- spurning advances to use a pipeline from the Caucasus to Turkey that has been heavily backed by the US.
Alexander Cornelius, general director of Tengizchevroil, also cautioned in an interview with The Associated Press that the Kazakh government must realize the risks businessmen have taken by pouring billions of dollars into this former Soviet republic -- and that attempts to renegotiate past contracts to keep more oil profits at home could scare away future investors.
"You're in a competitive landscape -- if you want to be a world oil power, you need to behave like a world oil power,'' Cornelius said is his standard refrain to Kazakh officials.
Tengizchevroil -- 50 percent owned by ChevronTexaco, along with ExxonMobil, KazMunaiGas and LukArco -- halted a US$4.5 billion expansion project in late 2002 after a dispute with the government over funding.
The resulting three-month interruption means the nearly doubling of production at Tengiz -- from 13 million tonnes a year to 25 million tonnes -- has been delayed by eight months to a year and won't happen before the third quarter of 2006, Cornelius said.
The Tengiz field in desolate western Kazakhstan is key to this country's hopes to become a major oil exporter, and also the Caspian Sea's aspirations to be a major oil-producing region competing with the Middle East.
Kazakhstan is the Caspian's richest country in energy wealth, and has attracted the most foreign investment from all corners of the world of all the former Soviet republics.
Right now, 96 percent of Tengiz oil is shipped through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, or CPC, Cornelius said, which runs to Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossisk. CPC operators are expanding capacity as Tengiz also seeks to increase output.
"We're hopeful they can get it done in time to coincide with our production," Cornelius said from his office at Tengizchevroil headquarters in Atyrau, Kazakhstan's oil capital. "If not, we have contingency plans, but they're not quite as economic."
The backers of a pipeline from Baku, Azerbaijan through Tbilisi, Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan -- strongly supported by Washington so Central Asia's resources can avoid Russia -- have sought to woo Kazakh oil as hopes for finding oil in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian have fizzled.
Cornelius said companies are exploring transporting oil by rail to a new terminal at the Kazakh port of Aktau to ship oil across the Caspian to Baku, and then through the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. Still, he said, "all of that is early work, and will depend on CPC."
Kazakhstan's oil hopes are also resting on the Kashagan field off the coast from Atyrau under the Caspian Sea bed that could dwarf Tengiz. Cornelius acknowledged that when Kashagan comes online, "even an expanded CPC won't be able to take it all."
Other options are also enticing for Kazakhstan's energy. Energy-hungry China lies to the east -- and the Kazakh government has backed plans for a 3,200km pipeline from across the vast Kazakh steppes to western China. Cornelius said Tengizchevroil was viewing such plans "with interest."
Much closer lies Iran, and Kazakh officials have also expressed interest in a pipeline through Turkmenistan to Iran as another alternative to Russian pipelines. However, current US trade restrictions on Iran mean the American companies involved in Tengiz can't do business there.
If the political situation changes, however, Tengizchevroil would be interested in Iran as a market for its oil.
"There's no doubt, if that were a possible political outlet then there's good business sense in having oil go that way," Cornelius said.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS