Kazakhstan will seize oilfields from ineffective owners

Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev has instructed to return the oil fields that are not being used back into the state ownership, Tengrinews.kz reports from the meeting dedicated to summarizing results of 2012 and specifying the course of implementation of the Stragtegy-2050. “I have instructed to lift the moratorium on the fields. This is required for attraction of investments and for development of new oil fields. I have already given the permission. Why do you keep asking about this? What is the problem? Do not repeat what has been done before. All the fields have been occupied mostly by the officials and their relatives. All they have done with them was holding onto them like the dog in the manger. We have terminated 118 out of 600 contracts. If we keep giving out the fields like this, there will be a mess,” President told Minister of Industry and New technologies Asset Issekeshev. President stressed that a certain number of years should be given for exploration, and after four the field should start producing. Otherwise, the field should be returned back into the state property. In the meanwhile, next to no exploration works are being performed in Kazakhstan. “Speaking of exploration, Kazakhstan is in the last place in the world by exploration expenses. We are spending $20 per square kilometer. China spends $45, Australia - $167 and Canada - $203,” Nursultan Nazarbayev said. President pointed out regretfully that many people lined their pockets on the mess with lands in the end of the 1990s. “State-own resources and lands were sold and resold. Many Kazakhstan people got rich from the thin air. Many of them have still not been found. Lands were occupied around major cities. Now we are buying these lands back from them for state purposes at the market price. I have repeatedly given the instructions, but and everything has been soft-pedaled,” Nursultan Nazarbayev said. By Gulnara Zhandagulova