Oil output in Kazakhstan fully recovers after power supply disruption in Mangistau region

ASTANA. Aug 21 (Interfax) - Kazakhstan produced 234,300 tonnes of oil on August 20, the Analytical Center for the Fuel and Energy Complex at the Kazakh Ministry of Energy said.

Oil production has fully recovered after the failure at Mangistau Atomic Energy Complex or MAEK, the press service of the Energy Ministry said.

On August 11, MAEK experienced a double failure of equipment at Cogeneration Heat and Power Plant No.2 (CHPP-2) owned by MAEK that led to a massive power outage in the Mangistau and Atyrau regions, in the west of Kazakhstan. It's the second consecutive shutdown at MAEK over the past month. On the same day, Power Generation Unit No.3 at TPP, another power plant owned by MAEK, also failed and shut down resulting in a 147 MW drop in power generation, which led to a decrease of 55 MW in power supply in the Atyrau grid and 35 MW in the Mangistau grid.

The MAEK equipment failure was followed by a decrease in oil output in the republic: from 232,000 tonnes a day on August 10 just before the accident to 209,300 tonnes on August or three days after the accident. As a result, the Energy Ministry had to lower the oil production target for 2023 from 90.5 to 89.4 million tonnes.

On July 3 of this year, the power supply was also disrupted in the Atyrau region due to an emergency shutdown of MAEK's Power Unit No. 1. As a result of the accident, a number of enterprises in the region had to shut down their production processes, including the Atyrau refinery. Repairs of Unit No.1 were completed on July 9. It took two attempts to restart the Unit.

MAEK LLP is owned by the local government of the Mangistau region. The company produces and supplies electricity, heat, potable and technical water and distillate to the Mangistau region, west Kazakhstan.