Kazakhstan's Tengiz oil production has not yet resumed, Chevron says

MOSCOW/LONDON, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Oil production at Kazakhstan's vast Tengiz oil field, one of the world's largest, has not resumed since its operator announced a shutdown on Monday, a spokesperson for Chevron CVX.N, which owns 50% of Kazakh oil producer Tengizchevroil (TCO), said on Friday.

Production was halted following a fire at a power unit on Sunday. It is unclear what caused the blaze, which a Kazakhstan government commission has been investigating.

The incident exacerbated problems for Kazakhstan's oil industry, already challenged by bottlenecks at its main exporting gateway on the Black Sea, which has been damaged by Ukrainian drones.

"Tengizchevroil (TCO) confirms that, as a precautionary measure, it has temporarily shut in production at its Tengiz and Korolev oil fields," a Chevron spokesperson said in an emailed statement, reiterating previous statements on the outage.

Oil production at the Tengiz oil field could be halted for another 7-10 days, three industry sources told Reuters on Tuesday.

JP Morgan said on Friday that Tengiz, which accounts for nearly half of Kazakhstan's production, may remain offline for the rest of the month.

It said Kazakhstan's crude output is likely to average only between 1 million barrels per day and 1.1 million bpd in January, compared with a usual level of around 1.8 million bpd.

EXPORT TERMINAL STRUGGLES TO RESTORE FLOWS

Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which handles around 80% of Kazakhstan's total oil exports, including supplies from Tengiz, has tried to reactivate crucial equipment at the Yuzhnaya Ozereevka terminal on Russia's Black Sea coast, attacked by Ukrainian naval drones on November 29.

CPC said on Wednesday that maintenance work on Single Point Mooring-3 (SPM-3) at the terminal was in its final stages. Various sources have said the work has been challenging due to stormy weather.

Three SPMs - floating buoys located about 5 km from the terminal near Novorossiysk - are used for offshore tanker loading; usually two are active, with one as a backup.

With SPM-3 undergoing planned maintenance and SPM-2 hit by the drone attack in November, Kazakhstan faced an export bottleneck that led to a sharp drop in its oil output.

A source familiar with CPC operations told Reuters that a vessel called Nissos Serifos has been assisting work on putting the SPM-3 back into operation. The source said the work is scheduled to be completed on January 26.

CPC does not comment on its operational activity.

"Our base case remains that the restart will likely occur in early to mid-February; if SPM-3 comes back online sooner, it would be a welcome surprise, but not our expected scenario," JP Morgan said.