A subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s state-owned gas pipeline operator and producer Qazaqgaz has announced plans to increase its underground storage capacity by one third, as the country prepares for a boost in natural gas output from the western-led Tengiz and Kashagan developments.
In a project declaration filed with the Kazakh government at the end of last week, Intergas Central Asia said that it is planning a two-phase drilling effort to increase the number of injection wells at a depleted field in the Shalkar district of the country's Aktyubinsk region, The Caspian Post reports citing foreign media.
The field - identified as Zhamankoyankulak - is currently used for storing gas that is transported via the Qazaqgaz-operated Beyneu-Bozoy-Shymkent (BBS) pipeline from the west to the south of the country.
According to the declaration, Intergas Central Asia is planning to drill 36 new injection wells between 2026 and 2028 during the first phase of the project, with another 36 wells to follow in the second phase.
The project aims is to increase the volume of gas that can be extracted from underground storage during the winter peak consumption period. According to the company, a maximum of up to 20 million cubic metres of gas per day can currently be extracted from the facility.
The project aims to boost that capacity by 16% with completion of the first phase and a further 16% with the second phase.
Zhamankoyankulak is one of two depleted fields in the Aktyubinsk region that were converted into a joint underground storage facility near the town of Bozoy in the first half of 1970s. Bozoy's nameplate storage capacity is estimated at about 4 billion cubic metres of gas, making it the largest storage facility in the country. Two other storage sites in Kazakhstan have a combined capacity of about 700 million cubic metres of gas. The BBS pipeline runs perpendicular to other legacy and newer gas pipelines. In western Kazakhstan, BBS has connectors to the Central Asia-Centre pipeline and Bukhara-Ural export pipelines that extend from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan across Kazakhstan to Russia.
In central Kazakhstan, where the Bozoy storage facilities are located, BBS connects with the newer Saryarka pipeline that is currently under construction and will eventually supply the capital Astana in the country's northeast. The pipeline's first section was completed in 2019.
In the south of Kazakhstan, BBS links to the Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan- China strategic pipeline, consisting of three parallel lines carrying gas from Turkmenistan, and some from Kazakhstan, to China.
Initially, the BBS pipeline is expected to be capable of transporting additional volumes of natural gas due to become available after Kazakhstan increases the processing of associated raw gas from the Tengiz and Kashagan oilfields into feedstock for polymers and chemicals. Remaining purified natural gas will be pumped into the trunkline network. Kazakhstan’s state run KazMunayGaz is currently working on a project to handle over 9 Bcm of associated gas at the Tengiz oilfield when operator Chevron ramps up oil production under its just completed $47.1 billion capacity expansion project.
Qazaqgaz, meanwhile, remains in charge of constructing up to three gas processing plants to take associated gas from the Kashagan field, operated by a consortium led by Italy’s Eni and UK’s Shell.
However, authorities in Astana hope that Qazaqgaz will pass oversight and management of the construction of the projects, due to be built in succession, to Qatari investor UCC Holding.
The first processing plants in this scheme, one for Tengiz and another one for Kashagan, are scheduled to come online in 2029. Astana also expects UCC Holding to take the management reins on a long discussed Qazaqgaz project to build the second, parallel line of the BBS pipeline, doubling its annual throughput capacity to over 30 Bcm of gas.
