Oman in talks on buying Kazakh oil field

ALMATY, Jan 26 (AFP) - Oman is in talks with Kazakhstan about acquiring an oil field in the Kazakh part of the Caspian Sea, Kazakh Prime Minister Daniel Akhmetov's office said on Wednesday.
"Intensive work has begun between the business partners, whose business relationship (has) reached a substantively new level," Akhmetov's office said after a visit by Maqbool Ali Sultan, Oman's commerce and industry minister and chairman of the state-owned Oman Oil firm, in a written statement.
The talks concern the Zhemchuzhina field, thought to hold around 100 million tonnes of fuel, an official for the Kazakh state's KazMunaiGaz company was reported as saying.
Oman has been keen to participate in this former Soviet republic's efforts to become a major player among the world's oil producers.
Oman owns seven percent of Kazakhstan's largest export pipeline, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which takes oil from western Kazakhstan through southern Russia to the Black Sea.
This vast but sparsely populated country plans to triple oil production to around 150 tonnes annually by 2015.

01/26/2005 15:25 GMT - AFP