New Oil, Gas Complex Being Built in Kazakh West

Excerpt from report by Kazakh Khabar TV on 21 March

[Presenter] The Agip KCO company, which develops the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea shelf, has announced construction of an oil and gas refining complex in [western] Atyrau Region. Our correspondent, Viktor Sutyagin, reports that this complex, together with the Bolashak gas refinery being built 30 km from Atyrau, will make it possible to refine 56m to 70m t of oil annually.

The oil [for the complex] will be extracted at the Kashagan sea oil field. Surface pipelines will connect the complex to artificial islands, where wells are being drilled. The company’s specialists say the environmental impact will be minimal.

[Passage omitted: monitoring stations will observe pollution levels]

[Luciano Vasques, the Agip KCO regional director, captioned] We suppose that oil extraction on the shelf can impact the fishing industry. We allocate 2.2m dollars to compensate for possible damage. The company will allocate another 3m dollars for the development of a salmon farm.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Central Asia. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.