Kazakhs slap pollution fines on key investors
Published by MAC on 2003-11-19
Kazakhs slap pollution fines on key investors
PlanetArk, Reuters
November 19, 2003
Astana - Kazakhstan's government said this week it had fined several key firms led by foreign investors, including ChevronTexaco's Tengizchevroil, for damaging the environment, and pledged to crack down on polluters.
Environment Protection Minister Aitkul Samakoma told parliament Tengizchevroil (TCO) had been ordered to pay 152 million tenge ($1 million) for polluting water and air.
"This is a new fine, this time imposed bypassing court proceedings, and which I believe they will pay," Samakova told reporters later. Company officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
This spring Samakova's ministry charged TCO, which develops the giant Tengiz onshore oil field in western Kazakhstan, with a 1.0 billion tenge fine ($6.8 million) for what it said was the illegal and detrimental storage of sulphur in the open air.
The government had originally wanted TCO to pay a fine 10 times larger, but the firm, Kazakhstan's largest oil producer and 50 percent owned by ChevronTexaco, contested this in court.
The government's litigation against TCO caused concerns among investors tapping the central Asian state's huge mineral riches that the authorities were trying to exert pressure on the venture and the terms of their contracts might be in danger.
Kazakhmys, which is the world's ninth producer of refined copper and is controlled by South Korea's Samsung Corp and affiliates, has been fined 3.5 million tenge, Samakova said.
She said Aktobemunaigaz oil firm, owned by China's national oil firm CNPC, had been told to suspend work at five oil wells in northwestern Kazakhstan because of damage to the environment.
The Ust Kamenogorsk Titanium and Magnesium Plant is to pay the largest fine of 864 million tenge ($5.88 million), she said. "If polluting plants do not take proper measures to protect ecological safety, they must be either shut or be modernised completely," Samakova said.
Kazakhstan, five times the size of France but populated by just 15 million people, aspires to join the world's superleague of oil producers by tripling its crude output to 3.0 million barrels per day by 2015.
But Samakova said the government was also concerned that the fragile ecosystem of the oil-rich Caspian Sea might be at risk.