Tengiz field ( kk, Теңіз мұнай кен орны, ''Teñız mūnai ken orny''; Tengiz is Turkic for "sea") is an
oil field
A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations.
Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...
located in northwestern
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
's low-lying wetlands along the northeast shores of the
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...
. It covers a project license area which also includes a smaller
Korolev field as well as several exploratory prospects.
Sizewise, Tengiz reservoir is wide and long.
Discovered in 1979, Tengiz
oil field
A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations.
Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...
is one of the largest discoveries in recent history.
[
] The city of
Atyrau
Atyrau ( kk, Атырау, ', ; russian: Атырау, ), known until 1991 as Guryev (russian: Гурьев, ), is a city in Kazakhstan and the capital of Atyrau Region. Atyrau is a transcontinental city, at the mouth of the Ural River on the Cas ...
, north of Tengiz, is the main transport hub of Tengiz oil. Many nations are involved in a large
geopolitical
Geopolitics (from Greek γῆ ''gê'' "earth, land" and πολιτική ''politikḗ'' "politics") is the study of the effects of Earth's geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to ...
competition to secure access to this source of oil.
The Tengiz oil fields entered a new phase of production with the construction of its Second Generation Project (SGP) and the introduction of sour gas injection (SGI). This onshore development, which has been in the planning and approval stage since 2002, began in 2004 and required a total investment of $7.4bn. The integrated project was completed in the second half of 2008.
The Tengiz field, first discovered in 1979, has recoverable reserves estimated at between six billion and nine billion barrels. The field was jointly developed in 1993 as a 40-year venture between
Chevron Texaco
Chevron Corporation is an American multinational List of oil exploration and production companies, energy corporation. The second-largest Successors of Standard Oil, direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Co ...
(50%),
KazMunayGas
KazMunayGas (KMG) ( kk, QazMúnayGaz, ҚазМұнайГаз) is the state-owned oil and gas company of Kazakhstan. (20%), US
ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...
(25%) and
LukArco LukArco B.V. is a subsidiary of the Russian oil company Lukoil. It was formed in February 1997 as a joint venture between Lukoil and the former American oil company ARCO.
In 2000, Arco merged with the UK oil company BP, and since BP became a shareh ...
(5%). The joint venture company is known as
Tengizchevroil
Tengizchevroil is a joint venture between Chevron (50% share in the consortium), ExxonMobil (25% share), KazMunayGas (20% share) and LukArco (5% share). The joint venture was formed in April 1993, when the government of Kazakhstan granted exclusiv ...
(TCO). Chevron is the operator of the TCO field.
Prior to its expansion in 2008, the Tengiz oilfield had 53 wells, tapping a column of crude oil around 1.6km thick. When the field was first tapped its oil pressure was 12,000psi, but in 2004 the pressure came down to 10,000psi in most areas and 8,500psi in others. The SGI project used gas injection technology to boost the pressure and increase oil recovery, while the SGP increased the number of producers (wells) and improved and expanded the crude export infrastructure.
The Tengiz field’s production of crude in 2004 was 13 million tonnes per year but the SGI and SGP production increased this to over 25 million tonnes. TCO crude oil production capacity was increased by about 80% to 540,000 barrels of crude oil, 46,000 barrels of natural gas liquids and 760 million cubic feet of natural gas.
The two projects created over 7,000 jobs in
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
and aided the development of the economy. A total investment of $20bn is envisaged for the duration of the 40 years of the Tengiz oil field venture.
Tengizchevroil intends to export more of the Tengiz field’s additional capacity via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium pipeline running the 1,500km from Tengiz to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk (thus solving the export problem from the remote Tengiz field).
Net daily production in 2019 (Chevron share) averaged 290,000 barrels of crude oil, 419 million cubic feet of natural gas and 21,000 barrels of natural gas liquid.
The integrated Future Growth Project-Wellhead Pressure Management Project (FGP-WPMP) is designed to further increase total daily production from the Tengiz reservoir and maximize the ultimate recovery of resources.
The FGP will use state-of-the-art sour gas injection technology, successfully developed and proven during TCO’s previous expansion in 2008, to increase daily crude oil production from Tengiz by approximately 260,000 barrels per day.
Conflict
In 2006 during the SGP project an argument between Turkish and Kazakh workers led to an outbreak of violence. 115 Turkish citizens were evacuated for medical treatment.
In 2019 during the 3GP project dozens of Arab expat workers were injured during violence sparked by a photograph shared on social media. Photos of the attacks on Arab expats were spread online throughout the Arab world, leading to a diplomatic dispute between Kazakhstan and several Arab countries including Jordan and Lebanon.
History
Kazakhstan finalized the consortium agreement with Chevron in 1993. In 1997, Lukoil purchased 5% in the Tengiz project from Chevron, and in 2000, Chevron built up its interest in the project to 50% by acquiring additional shares
from Kazakhstan. In 2003, Fluor was awarded the rights
[ to develop the Second Generation Plant (SGP) and Sour Gas Injection (SGI) project, which were expected to double production.] In 2004, the Tengiz Consortium raised $1.1 billion in senior secured bonds to finance these two projects. These two projects were expected to finish in 2006, but were delayed. In October 2006, the Tengizchevroil joint venture experienced riots. Shortly after in 2007, the Republic of Kazakhstan invited Maksat Idenov
Maksat Bagitovich Idenov is a prominent energy executive within the international oil and gas industry, currently the Executive Vice President at Eni.
Maksat Idenov has been in the oil and gas industry for nearly 30 years, and worked as the First ...
as First Vice President of Kazmunaigas and Chairman of the Partnership Council of the Tengizchevroil Joint Venture. During Idenov's tenure, the SGP and SGI expansion projects (worth over $6.9 billion) were completed in the second part of 2008,[ and stakeholder engagement began for the Future Growth Project (FGP) in 2009. In 2012, TengizChevroil began the Future Growth Project (FGP), whose aim is to continue to increase the field's production.
In 2014, Chevron and its partners, KazMunaiGas, ExxonMobil and Lukoil began the process of selecting engineering companies to work on the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the Future Growth Project, which will further expand the TCO oil field.
]
Reserves and production
Estimated at up to of oil originally in place, Tengiz is the sixth largest oil field in the world; recoverable crude oil reserves
An oil is any polarity (chemistry), nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of Hydrocarbon, hydrocarbons and is hydrophobe, hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilicity, lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usu ...
from Tengiz and Korolev fields combined have been estimated at . Korolev field alone holds of oil making it one-sixth the size of Tengiz.[ Like many other oil fields, the Tengiz also contains large reserves of ]natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
. The field is one of the world's largest oil fields, rivaling the Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...
in reserves of oil.
Since the oil from Tengiz contains a high amount of sulfur
Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...
(up to 17%), an estimated 6 million tons of sulfur byproduct were stored in the form of large sulfur blocks as of December 2002. At the time, about 4,000 tonnes a day was being added. On 3 October 2007, the Kazakh environment ministry was reported to be considering imposing fines against TCO for alleged breaches in the way the sulfur is stored.
In 2002, TCO produced , or one third of Kazakhstan's daily production. In January 2003, after contentious negotiations with the government of Kazakhstan, the TCO consortium members initiated a $3 billion expansion project designed to boost production to approximately by 2006. In September 2008, Chevron Corporation
Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California (shortened to Socal or CalSo), it is headquartered in S ...
announced that the major expansion of Tengiz field was completed and it would boost the production capacity to . In 2012 Chevron announced the field will see its total daily production increase by 250,000-300,000 barrels, bringing production above 500,000 barrels per day.
An area of major geopolitical competition involves the routing
Routing is the process of selecting a path for traffic in a network or between or across multiple networks. Broadly, routing is performed in many types of networks, including circuit-switched networks, such as the public switched telephone netw ...
of oil out of this oil field. Oil from the Tengiz field is primarily routed to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk
Novorossiysk ( rus, Новоросси́йск, p=nəvərɐˈsʲijsk; ady, ЦIэмэз, translit=Chəməz, p=t͡sʼɜmɜz) is a city in Krasnodar Krai, Russia. It is one of the largest ports on the Black Sea. It is one of the few cities hono ...
through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) is a consortium and an oil pipeline to transport Caspian oil from Tengiz field to the Novorossiysk-2 Marine Terminal, an export terminal at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. It is one of the world's ...
(CPC) project. The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline
The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline is a long crude oil pipeline from the Azeri–Chirag–Gunashli oil field in the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. It connects Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and Ceyhan, a port on the south-easter ...
is an alternative pipeline developed by U.S. and UK interests originating in the Southern Caspian which is the principal export route for crude from Azerbaijan and bypasses dependence on the Russian pipeline. In addition, Total S.A.
TotalEnergies SE is a French multinational integrated energy and petroleum company founded in 1924 and one of the seven supermajor oil companies. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and ...
is interested in developing a pipeline south through Iran, which is theoretically the cheapest route[
] due to the geopolitical climate involving Iran, however, the United States does not favor this route.
Environmental concerns
The oil from Tengiz field comes out of the wells hot and at a very high pressure, believed to be the highest in the world. It also contains large proportion of gas which is rich in the compound hydrogen sulfide yielding poisonous sulfur. A 1985 explosion in which one man was killed caused a -high column of fire visible from . The deadly gas made it impossible for Soviet firefighters to quickly extinguish the fire. The well burned for a period of one year and was finally capped
The government of the Kazakhstan imposed stricter guidelines for handling the sulfur. In 2006, Kazakh government threatened TengizChevroil with imposing fines. In 2007, the government imposed a $609 million (74.4 billion tenge) fine on TengizChevroil. The violations included a slow progress in dealing with vast sulfur stocks at Tengiz. The company had reportedly been fined $71 million in 2003 for open air sulfur storage as well, which was then reduced to $7 million on an appeal. According to the Environmental Protection Ministry, over 10 million tonnes of sulfur was accumulated near Tengiz oil field as a by-product of crude oil production.
Government had also set a requirement to relocate the village of Sarykamys which had 3,500 residents to new homes in the vicinity of Atyrau. The relocation program was funded by TengizChevroil and was done in 2004-2006. It cost the company $73 million.
In his book ''Poor People'', published in 2007, William T. Vollmann
William Tanner Vollmann (born July 28, 1959) is an American novelist, journalist, war correspondent, short story writer, and essayist. He won the 2005 National Book Award for Fiction with the novel ''Europe Central''. dedicates a significant amount of his attention to the native peoples living in Sarykamys and Atyrau and the effects of TengizChevroil's presence in these towns. Vollmann's account suggests that serious and widespread health risks were imposed upon the people of Sarykamys. Vollmann also suggests that in the corporation's efforts to displace the natives, many were not compensated fairly, so that upon being forced to move from their existing homes, they were unable to find or afford comparable housing in a new town.[Vollmann, William T. ''Poor People''. Ecco, 2007. pp. 173-196.]
Geology
The sedimentary section of the pre-Caspian basin varies between 5 km to 24 km and is dominated by the Permian
The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleoz ...
Kungurian salt, which is overlain by the later (post-salt) deposits of Upper Permian
The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleoz ...
, Mesozoic
The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...
and Cenozoic
The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...
all deformed by salt tectonics
upright=1.7
Salt tectonics, or halokinesis, or halotectonics, is concerned with the geometries and processes associated with the presence of significant thicknesses of evaporites containing rock salt within a stratigraphic sequence of rocks. This ...
and earlier (pre-salt) Paleozoic
The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon.
The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838
by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...
and upper Proterozoic
The Proterozoic () is a geological eon spanning the time interval from 2500 to 538.8million years ago. It is the most recent part of the Precambrian "supereon". It is also the longest eon of the Earth's geologic time scale, and it is subdivided ...
carbonates
A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word ''carbonate'' may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate g ...
and terrigenous sediment
In oceanography, terrigenous sediments are those derived from the erosion of rocks on land; that is, they are derived from ''terrestrial'' (as opposed to marine) environments. Consisting of sand, mud, and silt carried to sea by rivers, their com ...
s.[Lisovsky, N.N., Gogonenkov, G.N., and Petzoukha, Y.A., 1992, The Tengiz Oil Field in the Pre-Caspian Basin of Kazakhstan (Former USSR) - Supergiant of the 1980s, inGiant Oil and Gas Fields of the Decade, 1978-1988, AAPG Memoir 54, Halbouty, M.T., editor, Tulsa: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, ] Reflection seismology
Reflection seismology (or seismic reflection) is a method of exploration geophysics that uses the principles of seismology to estimate the properties of the Earth's subsurface from reflected seismic waves. The method requires a controlled seismi ...
in 1975 revealed the Karaton tectonic uplift
Tectonic uplift is the geologic uplift of Earth's surface that is attributed to plate tectonics. While isostatic response is important, an increase in the mean elevation of a region can only occur in response to tectonic processes of crustal thick ...
, which was 400 km2 in area and 1 km in relief, at a depth of 4 km.[ An exploratory well was drilled in 1979, discovering "significant oil flow" from the middle ]Carboniferous
The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carbonifero ...
carbonates overlain by Lower Permian clays and the massive Permian salt.[
]Stratigraphy
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock (geology), rock layers (Stratum, strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary rock, sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks.
Stratigrap ...
starts with the Upper Devonian
The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, wher ...
Famennian Stage
Stage or stages may refer to:
Acting
* Stage (theatre), a space for the performance of theatrical productions
* Theatre, a branch of the performing arts, often referred to as "the stage"
* ''The Stage'', a weekly British theatre newspaper
* Sta ...
consisting of homogeneous biogenic limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
and some thin dolomite Dolomite may refer to:
*Dolomite (mineral), a carbonate mineral
*Dolomite (rock), also known as dolostone, a sedimentary carbonate rock
*Dolomite, Alabama, United States, an unincorporated community
*Dolomite, California, United States, an unincor ...
interbedding
In geology, interbedding occurs when beds (layers of rock) of a particular lithology lie between or alternate with beds of a different lithology. For example, sedimentary rocks may be interbedded if there were sea level variations in their sedimen ...
, followed by Lower Carboniferous deposits consisting of Tournaisian, Visean and Namurian Stage limestones.[ Next comes the Middle Carboniferous Bashkirian Stage limestones, and then the Lower Permian Artinksian Stage ]argillaceous
Clay minerals are hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates (e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4), sometimes with variable amounts of iron, magnesium, alkali metals, alkaline earths, and other cations found on or near some planetary surfaces.
Clay minerals ...
sediments.[ The carbonate buildup is up to 4 km thick and form an ]angular unconformity
An unconformity is a buried erosion surface, erosional or non-depositional surface separating two Rock (geology), rock masses or Stratum, strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer ...
to the overlying Permian sediments.[
]
In pop culture
The Tengiz oil field was mentioned in the film ''Syriana
''Syriana'' is a 2005 American political thriller film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, loosely based on Robert Baer's 2003 memoir ''See No Evil (Baer book), See No Evil''. The film stars an ensemble cast consisting of George Clooney, Mat ...
'' (2005) starring George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by George Clooney, numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Awards, British Academy Film A ...
.
See also
*Kashagan Field
Kashagan Field ( kk, Қашаған кен орны, ''Qashaǵan ken orny'') is an offshore oil field in Kazakhstan's zone of the Caspian Sea. The field, discovered in 2000, is located in the northern part of the Caspian Sea close to Atyrau and ...
* Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline
*Oil and gas basins of Kazakhstan
The oil & gas basins of Kazakhstan can be grouped into four revealed or prospective oil & gas provinces in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Exploration in those provinces in which oil and gas has already been extracted had, by 2010, led to the discov ...
*Trans-Caspian Oil Pipeline
The Trans-Caspian Oil Transport System is a proposed project to transport oil through the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstani Caspian oilfields to Baku in Azerbaijan for the further transportation to the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean or Black Sea coas ...
References
External links
Kazakhstan Field's Riches Come With a Price - The St. Petersburg Times October 23rd 2001
- (2003) L. James Weber, Brent P. Francis, P.M. (Mitch) Harris, and Michael Clark. In: SEPM Special Publication 78: Permo-Carboniferous Carbonate Platforms and Reefs, Edited By: Wayne M. Ahr, Paul M. (Mitch) Harris, William A. Morgan, and Ian D. Somerville.
Sulfur Pads in Google Earth
{{Resources in Kazakhstan
Oil fields of Kazakhstan
Natural gas fields in Kazakhstan
Chevron Corporation oil and gas fields
ExxonMobil oil and gas fields
Lukoil oil and gas fields