Operations

Tengizchevroil inherited an oil and gas separation plant when it took over operations at Tengiz in 1993. This first generation of the Tengiz plant is called the KTLs (Russian for Complex Technology Lines). TCO has invested in expanding and improving the KTLs over the life of the operation. Today, the KTLs consist of five oil and gas processing trains and are now significantly more efficient and environmentally friendly. Started up in 1991, KTL-1 consists of two trains and has the capacity of around 7,000 tons per day per train. KTL-2, which also has two trains with the same capacity was successfully completed and started up in 1996. Last KTL train 5 was put on production in 2001 along with first oil from Korolev field. The capacity of train 5 is around 11-12,000 tons, per day.

SGI re-injects one third of produced sour gas back into the Tengiz reservoir at very high pressures to maintain reservoir pressure. The injection compressor is like no other compressor in the world and represents the state of the art in sour gas injection technology. SGI enables about 25% of total TCO oil production as well as pressure maintenance to reservoir.

In 2021, TCO employees and contractors worked over 123 million man-hours with 10 Days Away from Work incidents. While this is solid performance, TCO strives for zero workplace injuries and is continuously working to improve in this area. Living this commitment will ensure success in fatality prevention and process safety, the two cornerstones to incident-free construction and operations.