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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Fun-da-Mental#1 who wrote (69124)	7/4/2000 11:53:01 AM
From: Tomas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95453

Doubts over Caspian oil find - Financial Times, July 4 By Matthew Jones Oil officials on Tuesday poured cold water on reports that a huge oil field ranking in the top five in the world had been discovered in the Caspian Sea off Kazakhstan. The Japanese daily newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun said on Tuesday that oil groups in the Offshore Kazakhstan International Operating Co (Okioc) consortium now estimated that at least 15-20bn barrels of recoverable reserves had been found in the Kashagan block. But officials from the companies within Okioc later said it was too early to say how much oil had been discovered. "We have only drilled one well so far and that has not been tested yet," said a BP Amoco spokesman. Kashagan is the most widely watched wildcat exploration well to have been drilled anywhere in the world for several decades. The field is seen as strategically important because it would underpin the economics of US-backed plans to build a trans-Caspian oil export system that avoids both Russia and Iran. In the last few months speculation on the size of the oil field has swirled from around 12bn to 50bn barrels of oil. Kasymzhomart Tokayev, Kazakh prime minister, has fueled the rumours by describing Kashagan as being "several times" the size of the onshore Tengiz oil field, which is estimated to contain 9bn barrels of recoverable reserves. Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakh president, has claimed that his country could rival Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, by 2015. Okioc said Mr Nazarbayev was due to visit the Kashagan drill site on Tuesday afternoon prior to the start of testing next week. "A testing programme has been developed and agreed with the Republic of Kazakhstan and the first well test at Kashagan East should be completed at the end of July," it said. The companies forming the Okioc consortium are BP Amoco, Royal Dutch/Shell and BG International of the UK, Phillips Petroleum and ExxonMobil of the US, TotalFinaElf of France, Agip of Italy, Statoil of Norway and Indonesia Petroleum of Japan. ____________________________ Financial Times view: There are good political reasons for hyping the Kashagan oil field. But, as with any oil prospect, the numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt until physical tests have been done.