Court had thrown out fine imposed by ministry on NCOC in June
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The Kazakhstan government has appealed a court decision dismissing claims against the operator of the country’s largest offshore oil and gas field for alleged environmental damage.
The move, reported by Reuters on Monday, follows a ruling from a regional court in the Kazakh capital of Astana last June.
The court had rejected a case brought by the country’s Ministry of Ecology & Natural Resources against the operator of the giant Kashagan field, North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC).
The ministry had charged NCOC — a partnership between Shell, Eni, TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil, state-owned KazMunayGas, China National Petroleum Cosporation and Inpex — claiming environmental damage had been caused at Kashagan from excessive deposits of sulphur held in storage at NCOC’s onshore Bolashak facilities.
The company had been fined $5.1 billion.
The ministry said on Monday that it would appeal against the dismission, Reuters reported Ecology & Natural Resources Minister Yerlan Nysanbayev as saying.
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The ministry also filed international arbitration claims against the partner companies involved in Kashagan and the Karachaganak gas field for allegedly inflating costs and, as a result, reducing payments to the state.
Kazakhstan has the 12th-highest proven crude reserves in the world and is the largest producer in Central Asia, according to the International Energy Agency.
Kashagan is one of the country’s three giant foreign-led oil developments — alongside Tengiz and Karachaganak.