This year, on March 11, the Association of Oil Service Companies of Kazakhstan held a business breakfast in Atyrau with the new management of North Caspian Operating Company.
Traditionally, when new management in large subsoil companies is appointed, KAZSERVICE sets up meetings to introduce the new management to the Association’s members.
Richard Howe, who was appointed NCOC Managing Director this February, took part in the meeting and was actively engaged in all the discussions.
Apart from Richard Howe, NCOC was represented at the business breakfast by Kuanyshbek Mukhanov, Production Chief Manager; Marcel van Berkel, Contracting Department Head; Nurbolat Tulemisov, Local Content Planning and Implementation Department Head; and Eleonora Kim, Engagement and Local Content Development Department Head. The meeting was attended by all the heads of the Association’s sector-related committees, and they were the first who were given an opportunity to voice topical issues.
The agenda covered digitalization, employee attrition, NCOC interaction with joint ventures and consortia, as well as the status of the kazakh company on the Kashagan project. The internal regulation of relations between kazakh and foreign partners is an important question as well. The Association’s members informed the NCOC management that sometimes foreign contractors sign partnership agreements with them and get the required local content thanks to it, but later they provide a Kazakh partner with no work or offer absolutely meager rates. NCOC promised to take control over each case, as well as more closely monitor Kazakhstan’s content in the JV and consortia with foreign participation.
Nurlan Nursultan, Chairman of the Engineering Committee, addressed NCOC with a request to engage only Kazakh companies in brownfield and simple engineering works. This practice has already been adopted by KPO and TCO, while at NCOC certification and metrology services are performed by foreign contractors.
While discussing the issues of Kazakhstan’s accession to the WTO and the transition period until 2021, NCOC recommended the local market to actively prepare for the upcoming competition.
Once again, the Association members broached the subject of NCOC’s transition to electronic workflow when submitting tender documents. NCOC replied that the company had already been working on this issue, but it is time consuming — the corporate policy requires some documents to be submitted in printed form.
Of course, most questions were related to NCOC’s current and future projects, as well as the development of the Aktoty, Kairan, Kalamkas-Sea and Khazar fields. The NCOC representatives tried to address all the questions as much as possible and provided more detailed information earlier during the presentations at the conference KAZNEFTEGAZSERVICE-2019.
At the end of the business breakfast, the participants had a traditional opportunity to personally talk with the NCOC representatives. The operator generally noted the importance and necessity of such meetings, where industry players have an opportunity to discuss issues directly with NCOC without any official letters and addresses, thus making it possible to better understand the root of the problems and find ways to their solution.
