(Reuters) – The massive Kashagan field in Kazakhstan must start producing before the end of the year, Total’s Chief Executive Officer Christophe de Margerie said on Tuesday. Other investors in the international consortium developing the Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea, such as ENI have said the oilfield would pump its first oil by the end of 2012 or early 2013.

Cost overruns and assertive government policy opened the door for state oil and gas company KazMunaiGas to join the consortium of foreign investors in 2008. The start of the complex project has repeatedly been delayed.

French daily Les Echos wrote in its Tuesday edition that costs of the first phase of Kashagan, the world’s biggest oil discovery since Prudhoe Bay in Alaska in the 1960s, had risen by 20% to $48 billion.

Beyond first output, the Kashagan consortium plans an ambitious and costly second phase that could potentially more than double production to 1 million barrels per day.

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