BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 15. The implementation of a Marine Access Channels project is nearing completion, the official at North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC), which operates the project told Trend.
On Apr. 7, 2021, NCOC informed the public about the Marine access channels project. The company official said that due to the decline of the Caspian Sea level and associated shallowing of the sea in the area of Kashagan field offshore facilities, the ability of NCOC’s marine vessels to operate has been impacted with the potential of a full stop of marine operations.
Thus, NCOC initiated the Marine Access Channels project which will dredge access channels to enable marine displacement vessels to operate and support the operations of the Kashagan field.
“The entire dredging project is scheduled to be completed in September,” the company official said.
NCOC said that the dredging work started on June 10, 2021 and to date, the dredging has been completed at 15 km. The project impact area will total nearly 29 square km, which is 0.036 percent of the total North Caspian area.
Three cutter suction dredgers are being used to dredge the D Island evaporation pond and the western shipping canal.
The North Caspian Project is the first major offshore oil and gas development project in Kazakhstan. It covers three fields: Kashagan, Kairan, and Aktoty.
The Kashagan field is one of the three largest oil fields located in the northern part of the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea. Its recoverable reserves reach approximately 9-13 billion barrels (1-2 billion tons) of oil.
The first commercial oil production started at Kashagan in 2016. The project operator - North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC) - shipped the first million tons of oil for export in early 2017. NCOC has reached a record-breaking volume of oil extraction at the field (390,000-400,000 barrels a day) in 2019.
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