Production at a state-owned onshore oilfield in
Western
Kazakhstan
is "almost back to normal" despite an ongoing
wildcat strike, a spokesman for the state oil company said Friday.
Daulet Zhumadil, a spokesman for JSC KazMunaiGas Exploration and Production
(RDGZ.KZ), said that despite the strike at the wholly owned Uzenmunaigas unit,
the decline in daily production at UMG has been reversed since the beginning of
August and has now almost reached its normal output of 6 million metric tons a
year.
The strike over pay, along with another at a smaller field called Karazhambas,
on the shore of the
Caspian Sea
, is expected to lower KMG
EP's 2011 output by 6%, or 800,000 tons, he said. The Uzen field is located
near the town of
Zhanaozen
, in
Mangistau region.
Zhumadil said the stabilization had been achieved by hiring about 500 workers
from Zhanaozen after firing 900 others, out of a workforce of about 9,000.
"Only about 2% of our shifts are striking," he said. The company
calls both strikes illegal.
In the Karazhambas field, which is owned 50% by KMG EP and 50% by
China
's
CITIC Resources Holdings Ltd. (CTJHY), production returned to normal levels of
about 2 million tons a year in June, after 400 people were fired out of 4,500,
he said.
"About
1.6% of the workforce is striking there," he said.