also maintained a policy of full gas voidage replacement to maintain pressure of the reservoir above the dew point. By 1990, approximately 200 vertical wells had been drilled in Karachaganak reaching a peak production plateau of per day of gas and of oil, before beginning to decline in 1992. Phase 2 Beginning in 2000 under the operatorship of Karachaganak Petroleum Operating (KPO), the field went under a redevelopment program. This involved an investment of over US$1 billion into the construction and enhancement of existing facilities, new gas and liquid processing and gas injection facilities, a workover program consisting of 100 existing wells, a 120 MW power station for the facilities, and connection to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium via a line to Atyrau. This phase was officially completed in 2004, allowing for the production handling of per day of gas and of oil. Reservoir properties Production In January - June 2005, of gas was recovered, and 5.7 million tons of liquid hydrocarbons was produced. Overall, it is planned to recover about 300 million tons of liquid hydrocarbons and natural gas during the contract period. One current production issue facing the field is the increasing amount of gas of which a large amount is sour. As the export facilities of the project are not fully developed, most of this gas is being recycled back into the reservoir until it can be exported profitably. Field reserves It is estimated that the Karachaganak field contains 1.236 billion tonnes of liquids and of natural gas in place ( of oil equivalent). Geology The Karachaganak Field is one of the world's largest gas condensate fields. It is located in the Pre-Caspian (or North Caspian) Basin, which extends from the southeastern margin of the Russian Platform down to the northern coast of the Caspian Sea, and includes the offshore Caspian Sea north of about 44° N. The North Caspian is a pericratonic depression of Late Proterozoic-Early Paleozoic age. Sediments in the basin are up to thick in places. The basin is subdivided into numerous zones by large salt domes, and the primary salt layer, the Permian Kungurian salt, separates strata vertically into subsalt and suprasalt layers. The basin is bounded to the east by the Hercynian Ural Mountains and to the southeast and south by other orogenic belts. In the north, the basin lies on the flank of the Voronezh Massif in the west and the Volga-Ural