Wednesday, October 6th, 2004
Pipeline construction begins in the Karaganda district
Last week they began work on an oil pipeline to China. The pipe, through which the liquid black gold will flow, starts near the village of Atasu in the Zhanarkinskiy region and will end in the PRC at Alashan'kou station, a few kilometers past the border.
A month ago 'Noviy Vestnik' wrote about a joint project of these governments, but back then the discussion only dealt with intentions. Now the first kilometer sign of the future main is up - there are another 961 to go - and the first joint has been welded. The pipeline is being built by the Kazakhstan company KazTransOil and the Chinese national oil and gas corporation. Each side has invested 400 million Tenge each ($2,857,000). To the opening ceremony came Vladimir Shkol'nik, minister of energy and mineral resources, Chinese ambassador Chzhou Syao Pey, and Iyen Chen' Gen', president of the Chinese gas and oil corporation. Several dozen Chinese workers also attended, and they demonstrated to the journalists the superiority of our neighbors' communist system. Before the ceremonies had gotten underway, our workers were strolling around, looking at the new construction machinery and casting indifferent glances at their fussing leaders. The Chinese, however, could not sit still. They formed up into platoons, briskly marched across the contruction site and shouted some slogans.
It was soon explained that this was rehearsal for greeting the high-ranking Chinese delegation, while the text could be translated as: 'Be in good health our leaders, the most leading leaders in all the world!' Besides this synchronous ennunciation of good wishes, the Chinese workers expressed their enthusiasm at the presence of these highly respected personas by waving flags and setting off firecrackers. It would have been interesting to see if the Chinese were going to work the same way, in formation and in song, but alas. In order to observe this, one must travel to Alashan'kou, since the foreign workers had only come to the Karaganda region for the mass demonstration. Contruction here will be performed by our locals.
Our workers' conditions are rather decent, though they are railroad. Their home, their kitchen, their showers - are all rail cars. The visiting authorities also have their VIP-cars. The most important object of this moving working settlement is another rail car, with a special laboratory for checking the quality of the fitting work. Indeed, the most vulnerable point of a pipeline are the welds joining two pipes. If they were to break, and oil were to pour out, an econologic catastrophy would ensue, not to mention the multimillion dollar losses the pipeline operator would suffer. Therefore, the closest possible attention is paid to the welds. After welding, a remote-controlled machine is sent into the pipe. It carries a special xray film over the weld, where it is exposed from the other side. The film is developed later in the laboratory, and inspected to find out if the welders made any errors.
Completion of this construction work is planned for the end of next year, and then oil from our Kumkol'skiy field will gush into China. Besides this pipeline, the Russians are planning to build their own for use in pumping the liquid gold of Western Siberia. During its first stage of development, our main will be able handle 10 million tons of oil a year, but after 2010, the transport volume is planned to double. That should make one especially happy, since each ton that the oil companies pump would bring some money to the Karaganda region, since the pipe passes through our terrories.
Sergey Tereshchenko
