A group of energy companies developing the Kashagan oil field in Kazakhstan will cut 2010 spending to $7 billion from an earlier plan of $10 billion, Kazakh state oil firm KazMunaiGas.
The oilfield, in the northeast of the Caspian Sea, is due to come on stream in 2012 and put the Central Asian state in the league of top global oil producers. Its development has been plagued by delays and disputes over costs.
"This year's budget is about $10 billion," KazMunaiGas Chief Executive Kairgeldy Kabyldin told an energy ministry meeting.
"We have proposed to cut it by almost $3 billion by optimising expenditures." He gave no reason for the cut.
Kazakhstan said last year the global crisis could have driven down the cost of Kashagan's initial development, estimated at $32 billion.
The world's biggest oil discovery since the 1960s, Kashagan is run by Exxon Mobil Corp, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Eni, Total, KazMunaiGas [KMG.UL] and Japan's Inpex Holdings Inc.
In 2008, after accusing the consortium of cost overruns, Kazakhstan doubled its stake in the project in what analysts said was part of a global resource nationalism trend.
Expected to produce the equivalent of 10 percent of Europe's energy needs once at the height of its production, Kashagan is one of a dwindling group of giant oilfields, as cheaper and more accessible ones dry up.
Only 11 such giant fields were found in the 1990s, down from 29 in the 1960s, according to investment bank Simmons & Co.
