Agip's Oil Facility to Kill Caspian

The Agip KCO company plans to create an additional petrochemical processing facility in Kazakhstan. In accordance with the law, the company conducted a public consultation regarding this issue.

The regional director of Agip KCO, Luciano Vasques and manager of the programme for Kashagan deposit's full field development Bruce Stinson said that the land plot in Central Eskene was determined to be the most feasible options for the construction for a number of reasons, among which is its proximity to existing roads and railway facilities.

Agip specialists believe that the construction and operation of the facility will have the lowest impact on ground waters, soil, flora and fauna.

However, Kazakh academician Muftakh Diyarov sharply criticized the construction of the new oil processing facility.

"An enormous amount of oil to be extracted means enormous volumes of pollutant emissions. It is naive to think that they will not affect people's health," Muftakh Diyarov critically said during the consultation.

Diyarov offered his calculations of the emissions: in future there are plans to achieve the extraction of 60m tonne of oil per year. With every tonne of oil extraction, four kilograms of all kinds of dirt will fall into the water, on the shore and into the atmosphere.

"This project will kill the Caspian Sea," the chairman of the Ecological Union of the associations and enterprises of Kazakhstan, Mels Yeleusizov, said, backing the academician. "It is impossible to control the operation of over 200 wells, from which oil with enormous amounts of hydrogen sulphide will be extracted. I consider the options offered by Agip KCO as completely unfeasible," he added.