Caspian storm growing

MILAN – Kazakhstan wants hefty compensation for cost overruns and delays at the giant Kashagan oil field and favours replacing Italy’s Eni with a local company as operator, its deputy finance minister was quoted as saying.

Kazakhstan, in talks with Eni SpA on the future of the contract, expects compensation for “tens of billions of dollars” of economic harm, Daulet Ergozhin told the Wall Street Journal in a telephone interview, its online edition said yesterday.


He said Kazakhstan, which halted operations at the Caspian Sea project on Monday citing ecology issues, would “look positively” on a proposal to put a local company in control or operate the project jointly.

Kashagan is the biggest oil find in decades, but its start-up has been plagued with delays and cost overruns that have long irked Kazakhstan, which analysts say is keen to get higher revenues out of the project.

Reuters