Kazakhstan oil ministry accusations that a Chevron-led venture is pumping too much oil are the latest signs the government wants more money from production sharing agreements it considers unfair.
Reuters reported that last week Kazakhstan's Agency for Fighting Corruption & Economic Crimes said it had received materials from the country's general prosecutor on Tengizchevroil activities and "illegal production of oil" worth $1.4 billion.
Analysts say there is little to suggest that illegal overproduction is the true issue, and that the accusations come in an effort to redraw the PSAs and against the background of the eventual retirement of President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
"The Kazakh government is not a unitary actor," Teymur Huseynov, global head of energy research at Exclusive Analysis in London told Reuters.
"Tengizchevroil was told by certain officials within Kazakhstan that while prices are good, while there's a tax holiday and the market is in contango, to produce as much as you can," Huseynov said.
Last year Kazakhstan set its oil export duty to zero as global crude prices tanked, from an introductory price of $109.91 per tonne in 2008.
"Which has resulted in the $1.4 billion, which has led to a rival faction within the administration, which is saying these guys have screwed up by overproducing."
"It is reflected as problems of Chevron, but it is problems of clans within the government, especially as the president has this new status as 'Leader of the Nation'," Huseynov said.
Last month Finance Minister Bolat Zhamishev said Kazakhstan was considering the introduction of a fixed rate $20 per tonne export duty on crude this year.
"There is a lot of competition trying to influence (Nazarbayev) to choose one successor over another."
A spokeswoman for Tengizchevroil said in an email the company was "in full compliance with its contractual agreements" with Kazakhstan, and that its right to "produce without a maximum depth limit" was "explicitly documented" in its contract.
Last month Kazakhstan's Minister of Oil & Gas Sauat Mynbaev said the country's 16 production sharing agreements with foreign oil firms were under review, as they were initially set "at a loss", but there were no plans to cancel them.
Kazakhstan, Central Asia's leading oil producer, has 50 billion tonnes of proven crude reserves and in 2009 produced 76.5 million tonnes of oil.
News wires
