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Who will take care of drowning
oil wells?
JOURNALIST STORY
By Amina Jalilova, Novoye Pokolenie, 2004
02
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For three months in succession, a trail of oil has been seeping from
submerged wells of the Pribrezhnoye oilfield in Atyrau, Kazakhstan.
At one point, two oil spots were as large as several soccer fields. A
recent inspection was more encouraging, detecting just a silvery film
remaining on the water.
But we can only guess how much environmental damage the accident
caused. Most probably, no alarm will be raised until, once again,
shoals of fish and hundreds of sea animals are found dead.
Pribrezhnoye is far from being the only oilfield that was abandoned
because of the advance of the Caspian Sea. With the rising sea level,
some 15 oilfields have already been submerged in the coastal area. It
is a long time since any oil has been extracted from these wells, even
though many are allegedly owned by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral
Resources. Their real owners cannot be found.
Mr Radus Latfullin, managing director of the Kazakhstan State
Inspectorate for Supervision of Offshore Oil Safety, thinks such fields
could become ministry property. The point is that late in March the
national oil and gas company KazMunayGaz (KMG), while restructuring
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