News from Tengiz

Currently Denholm Zholdas are enjoying their busiest period in Tengiz, Kazakhstan.

The Turnaround period has begun, worth an estimated $8m in 2007. It brings with it a massive uplift in national staff and manpower from all over the world, including South Africa, America, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and even Scotland! An additional 630 extra staff are on site over the day and night shift which stretches both the local and DZ infrastructure almost to breaking point - the challenges of food and housing alone are monumental undertakings!

In addition to the scheduled Turnaround, the team were recently asked to provide their expertise to manage the repair of new valves installed on both the Sour Gas Injection Site and Second Generation Project. These contracts are scheduled to run for the next 2 years and are worth a potential $5m per annum.

Other side contracts are anticipated to run smoothly, but as these employ a further 300 staff this is rarely the case. The big construction projects are moving closer to completion with the first oil scheduled to be a milestone achievement in August, but talk is already of the next stages to develop the project further.

Alongside running the current contracts planning has started for the upgrading of the valve facilities and the relocation of all staff and base facilities from the plant area. This will be our main activity post Turnaround, but presents an immense challenge with the requirement to maintain all of our site services whilst the move is ongoing.

The delicate balance between contracts, future works, logistics and personnel, continues to be one that is finely tuned and managed by the team on a day to day basis, to ensure the continued smooth running of the operation and client satisfaction.