ASTANA, November 28. /TASS/. Oil production at major fields in Kazakhstan has plummeted sharply by 56% due to constraints on oil intake by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), Shyngys Ilyasov, an adviser to Kazakhstan’s energy minister, told reporters.

"The decline in production stands at 56% on major fields at the moment. The Energy Ministry of the Republic of Kazakhstan does not possess any data about the period in which the situation may normalize. The decline and adjustment of production will remain at current levels for the near future," he said.

Daily crude output at the Tengiz oil and gas field has been slashed to 39,000 metric tons due to adverse weather conditions and CPC limitations, Ilyasov said earlier. By comparison, the field’s daily oil production rate had been 84,000 metric tons earlier.

The CPC said on November 27 that it had halted oil shipments from the marine terminal on the Black Sea due to the severe storm that wracked southern Russia in recent days, which has in turn resulted in reduced quantities of oil being taken from shippers.