NCOC halts operations at Kazakhstan's Kashagan

By Trend

North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC) commenced the turnaround of the Kashagan offshore and onshore facilities, Trend reports citing NCOC.

A turnaround is one of the most important planned activities which implies full production shutdown for a short period of time once every few years as dictated by the regulatory compliance and business needs. The turnaround at Kashagan offshore and onshore facilities is aimed at assuring production system integrity and safety, mandatory activities and inspections required by Kazakhstan regulations as well as some works and projects aimed at debottlenecking and further increasing the production system capacity and reliability. The turnaround involves more than 2 million man-hours. The planned duration of turnaround activities is 45 days.

The Kashagan field is considered one of the largest oilfields discovered over the past decades. Its recoverable reserves are estimated at 9 to 13 billion barrels of oil. The commercial production at Kashagan started in autumn 2016.