OREANDA-NEWS. April 08, 2014. Karachaganak Petroleum Operating B.V. (KPO) and Aksai Industrial Park, LLP have announced signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and Road Map under the initiative of the RoK Ministry of Oil and Gas.

The documents are aimed at fostering local capacity development, technology transfer and growth of the industrial sector through localisation of high tech manufacture in the Western Kazakhstan region and are for the long term economic benefit of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Minister of Oil and Gas, Uzakbai KARABALIN, said: “In accordance with the request of RoK President on forming and development of high technological service in oil and gas industry and the development of industrial clusters of small and medium businesses at  major oil and gas projects, the Ministry of Oil and Gas has initiated the development of the Road Map for Aksai Industrial Park to localize certain services and manufacturing currently provided outside of Kazakhstan”.

 “In February this year, we have finalized all the issues and defined 9 next projects which are aimed to import substitution, provide high tech goods and services for Karachaganak project and create new jobs for local community”, added Minister of Oil and Gas.

KPO General Director, Damiano RATTI, said: “Signing of the MoU with AIP is a new milestone in KPO’s endeavour to maximise the involvement of Kazakh companies in the Karachaganak project.  KPO fully supports the RoK government local content initiatives and works in close co-operation with the RoK Authorities to achieve this goal.

“Local suppliers’ capacity building through sustainable development and skills transfer are central to the way we work.  We hope that through our co-operation, AIP will be capable of supplying highly competitive technological services and products to KPO”, Damiano RATTI said.

“Successful implementation of this initiative will create environment for the establishment of more complex high-tech products to meet the needs of Kazakhstan’s oil and gas industry”, added Damiano RATTI.

The Road Map that goes with the MoU lists a number of key joint initiatives aimed at enhancing Kazakh Content in the Karachaganak Project through technology transfer and creation of new jobs for the local community and also are linked at delivering services and introducing technology which are currently carried out in countries outside of Kazakhstan.

Besides, there are plans to create a new laboratory for the testing of equipment, an equipment repair facility for valves and instrumentation and also introduce pipeline pigging technology.

Within the MoU scope, KPO and AIP have agreed to develop a coordinated plan of actions that will help understanding the requirements of the Karachaganak Project in goods and services, matching those with the capabilities of AIP and its affiliated companies.

They have also agreed to monitor the performance and to regularly report on the progress of implementation of joint initiatives.

KPO is one of the companies in Kazakhstan actively developing local content programme, which has allowed involving more than three thousand Kazakhstani companies into the development of Karachaganak.  As of today, these companies for the period of 1998 – 2013 have received orders from KPO for over USD4 billion.  Last year, the proportion of local content in KPO contracts for the supply of goods and services reached 50.15% or \\$461.1 million in monetary term.