KazMunaiGas to boost reserves with $10 billion

KazMunaiGas, Kazakhstan's second-largest oil producer, said it would invest 1.5 trillion tenge ($9.9 billion) in exploration in the next 10 years as it aims to nearly double its reserves of crude oil and gas condensate.

KazMunaiGas Chief Executive Officer Lyazzat Kiinov said the company's current reserves stood at over 800 million tonnes of liquid hydrocarbons.

Larger reserves would boost the market value of KazMunaiGas and increase its output, Kiinov said. The company has said it plans to raise annual oil output by 60 percent to 35.4 million tonnes by 2022.

Kazakhstan, the second-largest post-Soviet oil producer after Russia and home to 3 percent of the world's recoverable oil reserves, plans to boost oil output to 82 million tonnes this year from 79.2 million tonnes in 2012.

KazMunaiGas controls London-listed KazMunaiGas Exploration Production (KMG EP), whose output and financial results are consolidated in the results of the parent company.

Kiinov did not say where the company would raise the funds to finance its exploration projects.

Kazakhstan gets $1.8 bn Chinese loan for gas pipeline

China's state-owned China Development Bank (CDB) will provide a $1.8 billion loan to finance a gas pipeline project in Kazakhstan. The loan will be allocated to Beineu-Shymkent Gas Pipeline LLP, controlled 50-50 by KazTransGas and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).

The project to build the Beineu-Shymkent gas pipeline, which will connect all major Kazakh pipelines into a single network, is being implemented jointly by Kazakhstan's national oil and gas company KazMunayGas and the CNPC. The project was agreed by Kazakhstan and China in a bilateral agreement.

The 1,475-km Beineu-Shymkent pipeline, which will link gas-rich western Kazakhstan to consumers in the south, is the second stage of the planned Kazakhstan-China Gas Pipeline.The first leg of the pipeline, Beineu-Bozoy, is set for completion in October 2013.

Indian oil firms focus on production

Faced with soaring demand, stagnant output at home and a need to diversify from Iranian crude imports lost to Western sanctions, Indian oil companies are hungry for deals like ONGC's Kashagan buy that promise supplies sooner rather than later.
State-run ONGC Videsh has agreed to pay about $5 billion for 8.4 percent of the Kashagan field in Kazakhstan, the world's largest oilfield discovery in four decades - which could boost its output by about 16 percent within a year.
The deal adds to a stable of assets that span some of the trickiest territories in the world - Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya among them - accumulated as parent Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) (ONGC.NS) struggled with domestic output.
But it's a drop in the ocean for the world's fourth-biggest crude importer - it buys in 3.5 million barrels per day (bpd) - where the energy gap triggers constant power cuts. Asia's third-largest economy plans to hit 8 percent growth in 2014/15 and by 2030 that could lift it to be third-largest in the world and also the No. 3 energy consumer, according to BP.
Oil supplies have become more urgent as Western sanctions over nuclear projects squeeze Iran, once India's second-biggest supplier. India's imports from Tehran slipped by nearly a fifth to 257,000 bpd in April-September.