Kazakhstan has set up a special commission that is investigating this weekend’s incident which led to the halt of the huge Tengiz oilfield, the Kazakh Energy Ministry said on Thursday.
The commission includes members of the Chevron-led field operator Tengizchevroil, as well as representatives of regional and state agencies.
Tengizchevroil, operating the supergiant Tengiz oilfield in Kazakhstan, is managed by a consortium led by U.S. oil and gas supermajor Chevron with a 50% stake.
The Tengiz oilfield was forced into a temporary shutdown this weekend after fires damaged a critical power generation and distribution facility. Production and exports were halted following damage to site power systems serving the field and the adjacent Korolev oilfield, Kazakhstan said.
Two fires broke out on January 18 at transformers serving different generation trains at the GTES-4 power plant. The power unit supplies electricity to oil and gas processing facilities at Tengiz. Both fires were extinguished, and the field and related infrastructure were described as safe and secure.
Before the forced shutdown, Tengiz was producing about 360,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil.
The oilfield is expected to remain offline for at least another seven to ten days, industry sources told Reuters on Tuesday.
The halt at the huge Kazakh oilfield helped lift Brent Crude prices above the $65 per barrel mark this week.
Crude oil from Tengiz is being exported through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pipeline to the CPC marine terminal on Russia’s Black Sea.
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium operates the pipeline from the Caspian coast in northwest Kazakhstan to the Novorossiysk port, which handles most of Kazakhstan’s crude exports from giant oilfields in Kazakhstan operated by international oil firms. CPC transports crude oil from three major fields in Kazakhstan—Tengiz, Kashagan, and Karachaganak, in which major western companies have stakes, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and Eni.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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