Prospects of the Region of Mangystau in the Oil and Gas Sector
More than 50 companies from Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, China and Russia were presented at the 9th Mangystau Regional Oil, Gas and Infrastructure Exhibition – Mangystau Oil, Gas & Infrastructure 2014, which was held in the City of Aktau in late autumn.
The First Deputy Chief of Mangystau Region Administration Suindik Aldashev stressed in his opening speech the importance of the Exhibition for the region and emphasized that five areas of region development had been identified for that period, namely: further development of the oil and gas industry, the development of the oilfield services cluster, the creation of transport and logistics cluster, the creation of a tourism cluster and the development of the construction industry. As ordered by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the issue of the study of solid minerals in the region had already being considered for. It was necessary to start work on geological exploration and in that very direction, because the Mangystau land was famous for the large amount of different minerals. Given the fact that the Special Economic Zone "Seaport Aktau" functioned in the Region of Mangystau, providing preferences and incentives for the development of new enterprises of priority sectors, companies were invited there to create productions oriented to the oil and gas sector in the region.
Mangystau Oil, Gas & Infrastructure 2014 was specifically distinguished with its business program, being full of special events. Thus, a discussion was held within the framework of the round table on "Oil Refining and Petrochemicals, Innovations in the Oil Refining Industry", organized together with JSC "KazMunaiGas – Processing and Marketing", which dealt with all issues concerning the projects of the modernization of refineries. The main speaker was the chief engineer of LLP "JV "Caspi Bitum" of the Aktau bitumen plant Arman Tokhbaev.
The most pressing questions can be summarized as follows: under the State Program of Accelerated Industrial and Innovative Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan, JSC "KazMunaiGas – Processing and Marketing" plans to mechanically complete the project "Construction of the Complex for the Production of Aromatic Hydrocarbons (CPA)" at Atyrau Refinery LLP, which will ensure the production of products with high added value – benzene (133 ths. tons per year) and paraxylene (496 ths. tons per year), as well as motor fuels that meet the environmental requirements K-3.
Implementation of the project "Construction of Deep Oil Refining Complex (DORC)" at the same refinery aims to increase the productivity of the Atyrau refinery up to 5.5 million tons per year and oil refining depth up to 87%, due to processing dark factions – black oil and vacuum gas oil.
Works on modernization of Pavlodar Petrochemical Plant LLP and PetroKazakhstan Oil Products LLP are conducted at the same time. Upon the completion of the modernization the volume of the oil processing will increase from 14.3 million tons per year up to 18.5 million tons per year, and the increase amounts to 29%. Output of black oil will decline by 1162 ths. tons per year, which is almost half the size of the current output. Production of gasoline is expected to increase for more than 2 times, diesel fuel – almost for 1.5 times, production of jet fuel – more than twice of the current production, which is 957 ths. tons per year.
The chief engineer of LLP "JV "Caspi Bitum" Arman Tokhbaev told about the work of Aktau bitumen plant, which reached the design performance – daily load of 3,000 tons. From the beginning of the year the plant has produced 140 ths. tons of road asphalt. Asphalt of Aktau bitumen plant complies in all indicators with the requirements of state standards and the best international patterns.
Currently, Aktau bitumen plant is finishing the preparation to the production of polymer-modified bitumen, being an innovative road construction material, which has not been previously produced in Kazakhstan and not used in road construction. Due to improved performance on heat, frost and abrasion resistance the polymer-modified bitumen prolongs the life of asphalt concrete pavements by 1.5-2 times. To avoid loss of quality during transportation of bitumen, for the first time in Kazakhstan Aktau bitumen plant has introduced the technology for packing road asphalt in disposable shipping containers of two types: "Big Bags" of 1000 kg. and plastic packaging of 40 kg.
Mangystau Region Administration organized also within the framework of Mangystau Oil, Gas & Infrastructure 2014 a roundtable on the development of small and medium-sized businesses in the City of Zhanaozen, where the affiliate programme on the subject was approved and the memorandum on its combined implementation with OzenMunaiGas JSC was signed.
In addition to the extensive business programme, the Oil, Gas and Infrastructure Exhibition in Aktau presented modern achievements in the field of geology and geophysics, oil service, technologies for energy efficiency, environmental projects and programmes.
The organizers of the event are the Kazakhstan Exhibition Company Iteca together with the International ITE Group of Companies. The event is held with the official support of the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Mangystau Region Administration and "National Company "KazMunaiGas" JSC.
For more information on the outcomes of the Exhibition please visit www.moge.kz.
