Kazakh Drilling Roundtable once again become the place where the drilling professionals meet. On September 21 this year the participants met for discussion during the third session of the Kazakh Drilling Roundtable. TMG Worldwide in partnership with National Company KazMunayGas became the sponsors of the conference. The event is traditionally held once every three years and its participants include the representatives of the regional subsurface users and leading drilling companies. The Association of the Service Companies of Kazakhstan was the media partner of this information venue and it also summarized the results of 2016 by presenting the drilling market review to the audience. Nurlan Zhumagulov, General Director of the Association, mentioned the problematic issues in his speech. The problems include the following:
· Many Kazakh companies have no experience in complex operations/services (pre-salt deposits);
· Arrangement of drilling tenders “on turnkey basis” limits the engagement of SME;
· Availability of preferences (import duties and VAT) for large operators and their contractors which creates unfair conditions in relation to the Kazakh suppliers during the tender process;
· Affiliation (over-estimation of the engineering documentation in order to remove the competitors);
· No indexing of the drilling operations (rates) at the market for the last 5 years;
· No state programs supporting the drilling industry (special credits).
It is expected that the event shall highlight the landmarks for future development of the drilling sector and will allow large foreign companies to establish mutually beneficial relationship with the key Kazakh companies in the local market.