ASTANA (Interfax-Kazakhstan) — Investment in the Kalamkas project, an offshore oil field in the Caspian Sea, may total $70 bln, Rashid Zhaksylykov, the chairman of Kazakhstan’s Union of Oil Service Companies, told in an interview.

Recently, we learned that four new offshore fields will be developed by a consortium of companies that are mining at Kashagan. Studies have already been completed on the Kalamkas Sea and Khazar. The profitability of production will be clear after the producers obtain the first results.

Currently North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC) is considering options for developing a new prospective site within the framework of the North Caspian project through synergies with other fields and business partners in the Caspian. Now NCOC is working with Caspi Meruerty Operating Company (CMOC) to reduce costs through the joint development of its Kalamkas Sea field and Khazar field. The total recoverable reserves of these two deposits are 67 mln tons of oil and 9 bln m³ of gas.

Joint development can stimulate development of new stages and development of deposits in the Middle Caspian. The active phase of construction in the fields of Kalamkas-Sea and Khazar is planned for 2021-2027.

These deposits, as well as the deposits of Aktoty, Kairan and Southwest Kashagan are located near the Kashagan deposit, which NCOC after a nearly 3-year break restarted in the fall of 2016.

The geological reserves of Kashagan are estimated at 4.8 bln tons of oil. Total oil reserves amount to 38 bln barrels, of which about 10 bln barrels are recoverable, natural gas reserves are more than 1 tlnm trillion m³.

In the long term, it is planned to join the Middle Caspian fields in the overall development strategy with recoverable volumes of 66 mln tons of oil and 8&nbspbln ;m³ of gas.

Lukoil, with little prospect of discovering new offshore areas in Russia, wishes to acquire stakes in two new blocks on the Kazakh shelf of the Caspian Sea. In this regard, the company is interested in P-2 and Zhenis blocks, which were refused by Total back in 2012, according to Kazakh Energy Ministry.