By Raushan Nurshayeva
ASTANA, April 17 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan's government announced an audit of all energy and mineral resources contracts on Tuesday but said it had no intention of seeking unilaterally to revise any existing deals. The vast Central Asian state has attracted tens of billions of dollars of foreign investment into its rapidly growing oil, gas and metals extraction industries. In recent years it has demanded terms more in its favour, reflecting lower risks of investment.
"Our subsoil policies should be aimed at diversifying the economy so I am ordering the energy ministry to conduct an audit of all contracts in the subsoil sector to see whether or not they solve the tasks we have set ourselves," Prime Minister Karim Masimov told a government meeting.
He gave no details but the government has been seeking both to diversify the economy and to process raw materials inside the country where possible in order to maximise the economic benefit it gets from exports.
Masimov said the ministry had one month to conduct its audit and appeared to suggest part of his concern lay with unnamed firms he believed were in breach of their contracts.
"Sometimes they take up (contracts)... but then nothing happens," he said. "We want to stop this practice."
Energy and Natural Resources Minister Baktykozha Izmukhambetov told reporters: "This means that we will again analyse whether contract conditions in the subsoil sector are being met."
"We will in future pay attention to the necessity ... of expanding and building refining and enriching factories and plants," he said.
"There is no question of revising the contracts. Any change to a contract would have to be agreed by both sides."
VENTURES
Kazakhstan, which produces about 1.3 million barrels of oil a day, has two major onshore fields at Tengiz and Karachaganak already producing oil and is due to start production at the massive offshore Kashagan field in coming years. Tengiz is operated by Tengizchevroil, of which Chevron holds 50 percent, national oil firm KazMunaiGas has 20 percent, Exxon Mobil 25 percent and Russia's LUKOIL five percent.
Karachaganak is co-led by Italy's ENI and Britain's BG and both Chevron and LUKOIL hold stakes. ENI is leading the Kashagan project, which also involves Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, France's Total, ConocoPhillips, KazMunaiGas, and Japan's Inpex. China's CNPC has also become an increasingly important player in mid-sized Kazakh oilfields.
Home to a fifth of the world's uranium supplies, Kazakhstan has also sought to boost its exports of the radioactive metal and enrich more uranium inside Kazakhstan.
It has joint ventures with France's Areva, Canada's Cameco and Japanese Sumitomo Corp and Kansai Electric Power Co.
Reuters
