MAIN CASPIAN OIL PRODUCTION AND PIPELINE PROJECTS

Competition to export the oil and gas wealth of the Caspian Sea will hot up in August when the first oil from Kazakhstan's giant Tengiz field finally flows out of a consortium-built pipeline at Russia's Novorossiisk port.

The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) line is the first major new pipe built to export oil from a region with estimated hydrocarbon reserves of up to 250 billion barrels. But many other schemes will follow. Below is a list of the main fields, followed by production and pipeline projects in the Caspian region: FIELDS-TENGIZ is one of the world's largest oilfields with total reserves of about 25 billion barrels. It is developed by the Tengizchevroil joint venture, led by U.S. oil major Chevron (with 50 percent. Kazakhstan holds 20 percent of the venture, ExxonMobil 25 percent and LUKArco five percent. KASHAGAN is a more recent Kazakh oil find which, according to some estimates, could contain as much as 50 billion barrels of oil, making it possibly the largest field to be discovered in the past three decades. It is being developed by an international consortium OKIOC, with Italy's ENI (Montreal:ENI.M - news) as the project operator.

AZERI-CHIRAG-GUNESHLI is operated by BP and belongs to the Azerbaijan International Operating Company. The complex's output will be ramped up to at least 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) by 2005 and one million bpd by 2010 from a current 100,000-130,000 bpd.

There are two blocks on Russian Caspian territory -- the Severny, owned by LUKOIL , and a block offshore from the Volga Delta, owned equally by LUKOIL, Gazprom and YUKOS . The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources estimates reserves in the Russian sector at 4.4 billion barrels.

Turkmenistan also has big oil and gas deposits, but so far has been unable to attract much international investment. It disputes Azerbaijan's ownership of the Azeri and Chirag fields and threatens legal action if Baku continues working them.

The CASPIAN PIPELINE CONSORTIUM is a 1,500-km (930 mile) link from Tengiz to Novorossiisk. Initial capacity will be 560,000 barrels per day, rising to 1.35 million barrels a day. Shareholders are Chevron, the Russian, Kazakh and Oman governments, LUKOIL, Rosneft-Shell Caspian Ventures Mobil , Agip , BG (Kazakhstan Pipeline Ventures and Oryx .

ATYRAU-SAMARA: an existing 690 km (430 mile) pipeline along which Kazakh oil is currently being pumped. It goes from the Tengiz field to Samara in Russia and thence to the Druzhba pipeline system. Its capacity is around 200,000 bpd.

BAKU-CEYHAN: a proposed line of around 1,700 km (some 1,000 miles) from Azerbaijan to Turkey via Georgia, expected to cost $2.8-$2.9 billion. BP leads the sponsor group which plans to build the one million bpd capacity pipeline by 2005. The project is also heavily backed by the United States.

BAKU-SUPSA: Some 100,000-130,000 bpd of oil from Azerbaijan's Chirag field is already being exported along a line from Baku to the Georgian port of Supsa.

SHAKH DENIZ: Another BP-led consortium plans to build a link to feed gas from Azerbaijan's 15 trillion cubic feet Shakh Deniz gasfield into Turkey.

KASHAGAN TO IRAN: TotalFinaElf is supporting a study of a pipeline from Kashagan across the Caspian to the Iranian border. A further pipeline could then be built to pipe Kazakh crude across Iran to Tehran's Gulf Export Terminals.