LONDON, July 2 (UPI) -- Oil from a field in Kazakhstan is connected to a regional pipeline network to facilitate exports, oil and gas company Max Petroleum said.
Max, a company focused predominately on Kazakhstan, said it commissioned a pipeline that connects its Zhana Makat oil field to an export network about six miles away.
"It is now possible to deliver oil directly from the Zhana Makat central processing facility to the national Kazakh pipeline network enabling direct delivery of both domestic and export oil sales," the company said in a statement Tuesday.
The company said the pipeline means end users are saving about $4 per barrel on oil from the Zhana Makat field.
The company said about 3,400 barrels of oil per day is flowing through the pipeline, but this should increase once other fields in the area start producing more oil. That's expected in 2015.
Kazakhstan hosts the Kashagan oil field, one of the largest in the world, with as much as 16 billion barrels of estimated commercial reserves. Problems with pipeline corrosion at that field, however, have set back project developments.
Kazakhstan holds as much as 30 billion barrels of oil reserves.
