Kazakhstan will cut its oil output target for this year from the current 90.3 million metric tons due to some maintenance breaks at local oilfields taking longer than expected, Energy Minister Almasadam Satkaliyev said on Wednesday.

He did not specify how much output could be lowered, but said that the giant Kashagan oilfield, currently on maintenance, would fully restart in a day or two.

Another giant field, Tengiz, was out for about 50 days in May-June, Satkaliyev said, and some field outages were linked to maintenance at Russia’s Orenburg gas processing plant which takes in Kazakh feedstock.

Separately, the energy ministry said output at Kashagan was already restarting and would come fully online on Nov. 1.

Kazakhstan has for much of this year exceeded its OPEC+ production quota and the Astana government has promised that cuts warranted by maintenance would help it offset that.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Tamara Vaal; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; editing by Jacqueline Wong and Jason Neely)