Kazakhstan to establish Drilling and Production Research Institute

A research institute of oil drilling and production will soon be created in Kazakhstan, Tengrinews reports citing KazMunaiGas Chairman Sauat Mynbayev. "We will develop a new facility to research oil drilling and production that will become KazMunaiGas' technological center that hold all the design documents for all the stages of exploration, drilling, production and all the technologies used for development of the fields of KazMunaiGas. They won't be just stored there, but the institute will be their sole developer," Mynbayev said during a meet of KazMunaiGas board this week. Two existing institutes located in Aktau and Atyrau - Atyrau Institute of Oil and Gas being one of them - will be integrated into the new Institute. "They will be monitoring correct implementation of technologies in the fields as design supervisors, together with the new R&D establishment," he explained. "What we have now is that one institute develops design documents, another institute brushes them up and some third institute runs the designer supervision. The situation has to be changed and the field audit should be stepped up. Only exactly what the documents made by the institutes prescribe should be done in the fields," Mynbayev added. The enhanced supervision will help improve the quality of work done by local contractors at oil fields. Besides, the new establishment's cooperation with institutes may finally help fill the gap between education and the actual industry in Kazakhstan. However, there may be a different side to the new development. KazMunaiGas is entitled to have a share in all the projects that are considered strategic for Kazakhstan. So the plans to transfer all the design documents and technologies used in KazMunaiGas fields might as well mean that technologies from foreign-operated giants like Tengiz and Kashagan may be part of the transfer as well. Foreign companies are very keen to guard their technological secrets and now it remains to be seen whether they will be asked to give them up. Reporting by Altynai Zhumzhumina