Tengizchevroil (TCO) is advancing plans to boost oil output from Kazakhstan's giant Tengiz field, currently limited by lack of transportation capacity.
If construction of Tengiz infrastructure proceeds as expected, Tengizchevroil partners by yearend 1994 win be able to produce and export as much as 130,000 b/d of Tengiz crude. Tengiz production in 1993 averaged about 60,000 b/d.
Tengizchevroil is a partnership of Chevron Corp. and Kazakh production association Tengizmunaigaz (TMG).
Key to the timing of the big capacity increase is a TCO contract let last month to Brown & Root Inc., Houston, for two modular crude oil treating trains. The modular units are designed to reduce the amount of corrosive, odorous ethyl and methyl mercaptans in Tengiz crude streams to enable TCO to export it through the former Soviet Union's pipeline and storage systems.
One of the two Brown & Root oil treating trains, Unit 031, is to receive crude oil from Tengizchevroil's KTL-1 Tengiz oil processing train, which began operating in April 1991. Treating Unit 032 is to be installed in line with the KTL-2 train, scheduled to begin operating about mid-1994.
At full capacity, the KTL-1 and KTL-2 trains will be able to process a combined 200,000 b/d of Tengiz crude.
BROWN & ROOT PROJECT
Brown & Root's contract is a turnkey agreement that includes engineering, procurement, construction, site installation, and hookup of the two treating trains.
Work covered by the agreement is to be complete by yearend, a deadline that requires a fast track fabrication plan. Employees of Brown & Root in Houston, London, and Kazakhstan and of joint venture Brown & Root Skoda in Plzen, Czech Republic, are to work on the project.
Brown & Root Skoda is to construct six pipe rack prefabrication modules.
Plans call for shipments of 14 skid mounted process modules to start early in August from Brown & Root's Greens Bayou fabrication yard near Houston. Destination will be the Black Sea.
The oil treating modules are to move from the Black Sea through the Volga-Don Canal system to the Caspian Sea port of Aktau, Kazakhstan, where they will be loaded onto large transports and rail freight cars for the 750 km trip to Tengiz. AU materials, equipment, and components are to be on site in Tengiz by September for assembly and installation.
"The Volga-Don Canal freezes by mid-October, so if we don't ship by August, we lose our weather window," said Larry Maresh, Brown & Root project engineer.
The mercaptan removal process to be used at Tengiz was developed by the Vniius Institute in Kazan, Russia.
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