Exclusive-Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oilfield seen recovering less than half its output by February 7, sources say

MOSCOW, Jan 27 (Reuters) – Kazakhstan’s biggest oilfield, Tengiz, is likely to have restored less than half of its normal production by February 7 as it slowly recovers from a fire and power outage, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The shutdown of Tengiz, one of the world’s biggest oilfields, has been another setback for Kazakhstan, whose main export route was limited over recent months after an attack by Ukrainian naval drones.

The operator of the field, Chevron-led Tengizchevroil (TCO), temporarily halted production at the Tengiz and Korolev oilfields on January 18 after a fire at a generator triggered a power supply outage. It was unclear what caused the fire.

Chevron said on Monday that the company had restarted oil production, without naming the field. Separately, Kazakhstan’s energy ministry said on Monday that Tengiz was preparing to resume oil output soon, and that Korolev was already operating.

But TCO has yet to lift a force majeure on CPC Blend crude supplies issued after the field’s shutdown.

One of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to talk to the media, said that the fields were expected to produce 33,000 metric tons per day by February 5, equivalent to about 260,000 barrels per day or only about 26% of usual levels.

Daily production will reach 57,000 metric tons, or 46% of the usual level, by February 7, the source said, adding that the scale of further recovery remained uncertain.

TENGIZ PRODUCTION

Another source said that restoring normal production at Tengiz would not be easy – and the pace of recovery was hard to estimate.

“Oil output has been restarted and will reach a decent level in a week or so but it’s hard to say what’s next”, he said, adding that Tengiz would hardly catch up with its export schedule.

A third source said that Tengiz output may reach 670,000 bpd by mid-February, which is close to autumn output levels, but well below the 900,000 bpd the field reached early last year.

The Tengiz field in western Kazakhstan is ranked by Chevron as the world’s deepest producing supergiant oilfield, and extracting oil there is technically challenging.

Most of Tengiz’s crude oil is exported via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which accounts for 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil exports.

JPMorgan said on Friday that Tengiz might remain offline for the rest of the month, and estimated Kazakhstan’s January crude output was likely to average between 1 million and 1.1 million bpd, compared with around 1.8 million bpd usually.

Kazakhstan’s government said on Monday that Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov had met ExxonMobil Vice President Peter Larden and urged the U.S. energy company to accelerate work to deal with the outage and prevent similar incidents in future.

With a 25% stake, ExxonMobil is the second-largest shareholder in the TCO consortium behind Chevron, which holds 50%. Kazakhstan’s KazMunayGaz has 20%, and Russia’s Lukoil 5% of the group.

(Reporting by Reuters, Ron Bousso in London. Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Mark Potter)