Kashagan group says looking at nearby Khazar oilfield

ASTANA, Feb 23 (Reuters) - A consortium operating Kazakhstan's giant Kashagan oilfield is considering the joint development of two smaller nearby fields, one of which is co-owned by Oman Oil Company, its senior executive said on Friday.

Apart from Kashagan itself, the consortium known as North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC) holds rights to develop three smaller nearby fields in the Caspian sea. One of those fields, Kalamkas, is adjacent to the Khazar field which is outside of NCOC contract territory.

"We have identified a number of opportunities to reduce the cost of the project that could make it economically viable," Bruno Jardin, managing director of NCOC, told a meeting at the energy ministry, referring to the idea of co-developing Kalamkas and Khazar.

Khazar is part of a different project known as Pearls, although some of the investors in Kashagan and Pearls overlap.

Kashagan is operated by Eni (LSE: 0N9S.L - news) , Total (LSE: 524773.L - news) , Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) , ExxonMobil, Kazakh state firm KazMunayGaz , China's CNPC and Japan's Inpex.

Shell and KazMunayGaz are also shareholders in the Pearls project alongside Oman Oil Company.

Jardin provided no details of the potential deal.

Kashagan, the former Soviet republic's biggest oil asset, started production at the end of 2016 and is now in the process of ramping up output from about 200,000 barrels per day to 370,000 barrels per day. (Reporting by Raushan Nurshayeva; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov, editing by David Evans)