Italian engineering and management company Proger, through its local company Caspian Proger, has signed a five-year framework agreement with the North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC) for operations on the Kashagan project in Kazakhstan.
The agreement, with an estimated amount of up to $20 million, concerns the provision of multidisciplinary engineering, project management and support services within the Kashagan onshore and offshore plant in Kazakhstan, Proger said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Kashagan offshore oil field, located in the North Caspian Sea 80 km off the city of Atyrau, is one of the largest in the world and is being developed and operated by NCOC, a joint venture of the state-owned KazMunaiGas with Shell, Total, Eni, ExxonMobil, CNPC, and Inpex.
NCOC is the operating company for the North Caspian Sea Production Sharing Agreement (NCSPSA) which regulates the exploration, development and exploitation rights of an area of approximately 5,000 square kilometres until 2041.
The first development phase of Kashagan, known as the Experimental Program (EP), also saw Proger engaged since the early 2000s and led to the start of commercial production of the field in October 2016 and to the achievement of its maximum capacity of 380,000 barrels per day (bopd) in the first half of 2019.
In the subsequent development phases, the field production will be able to increase up to 1.5 million barrels of oil per day (Mbopd).
Located in a difficult offshore environment, the development of the Kashagan field represented the largest international investment in Kazakhstan to date and, in the oil & gas sector, the project is considered one of the most challenging in the world.