UPDATE 1-Kazakhstan urges ExxonMobil to speed up work to fix Tengiz outage
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By Felix Light and Vladimir Soldatkin
ALMATY/MOSCOW, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov met with ExxonMobil XOM.N Vice President Peter Larden and urged the U.S. energy firm to speed up work to deal with an extended outage at the Tengiz oilfield and prevent similar incidents, the government said on Monday.
In a statement posted on the government's official Telegram channel, it said that Bektenov had: "expressed concern about the situation at Tengiz."
It added: "He emphasized the importance of expediting efforts to promptly address the consequences of the accident and taking the necessary measures to prevent similar incidents in the future."
Kazakhstan's oil exports have been hit by a series of setbacks in recent weeks, with a fire at a power unit causing an output shutdown at the Tengiz field in Kazakhstan's far west. Kazakh officials have created a special commission to investigate the incident.
Chevron holds a 50% stake in the Tengizchevroil (TCO) consortium , while Kazakhstan's KazMunayGaz has 20%, Exxon 25% and Russia's Lukoil 5%. Tengiz produced around 606,000 barrels per day in 2024.
Prior to the fire, drone strikes on tankers and onshore infrastructure at the Russian port of Novorossiysk had disrupted oil shipments via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, by which the bulk of Kazakhstan's oil exports are shipped.
Separately, Kazakhstan's state oil and gas company KazMunayGaz said that it had discussed new export routes for Kazakh oil with ExxonMobil.
Kazakhstan has for several years been trying to boost alternative export routes for its oil, including across the Caspian Sea to Turkey via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
