Design institutes of Kazakhstan's oil and gas industry

The “Licence for works and services in the hydrocarbons sphere” has 13 sub-types. Two are design sub-types: sub-type 11, “Drafting basic project documents for hydrocarbon fields and analysing the development of hydrocarbon fields”, and sub-type 12, “Drafting technical project documents for hydrocarbon fields”. The licence is inalienable, class 1.

The Subsoil Code requires a licensed design organisation for all project documents, for the reserves estimate and operational estimate reports, and for the development analysis. The Unified Rules repeat it for technical drilling projects, and the conservation and liquidation rules for conservation and liquidation projects.

The licence is issued or refused within 30 working days. The licence fee in this sphere is charged per sub-type.

What a licensee must have. An office at the address given in the application. For basic documents and development analysis — licensed software for geological modelling of fields and hydrodynamic modelling of reservoirs, computers, a printer, a plotter of up to A0, downhole tools for field studies and a winch unit. For technical documents — licensed software for designing well drilling, computers, a printer and a plotter. A technical manager with higher technical education in hydrocarbons and at least three years' experience, and three specialists with at least two years' experience. Compliance is checked with a visit to the applicant.

In architecture, urban planning and construction there are the “Licence for survey activity” and the “Licence for design activity”; both are inalienable, class 1. The sub-types of the design licence include the design of engineering systems and networks, among them “trunk oil pipelines, petroleum product pipelines, gas pipelines (medium and high pressure gas supply)”, and the technological design of industrial objects — energy, the processing industry and others. Oil and gas production is not named among the technological-design sub-types.

The annex to the licence states the licensee's category. Category I — objects of all levels of responsibility. Category II — objects of the second and third levels, and of the first level only as a subcontractor. Category III — objects of the third level, and of the first and second levels only as a subcontractor. The licensor assigns the category when issuing the licence.

The object's level of responsibility is set by the customer and confirmed by the design organisation. The first (elevated) level includes, among others, hazardous production facilities not listed separately in the Rules that have the features set in Articles 70 and 71 of the Law on Civil Protection; tanks for oil, petroleum products and liquefied gas of 10,000 m³ and more; gas distribution above 1.2 MPa; and trunk oil and product pipelines of classes I and II. The second level includes such tanks of a smaller volume and trunk oil and product pipelines of classes III and IV.

It follows from these provisions that an object of the first level of responsibility may be designed under a direct contract only by a category I licensee; category II and III licensees may work on it only as subcontractors.

Licences are issued by the local executive bodies of the capital, the regions and the cities of national significance that exercise state architectural and construction control and supervision. When the composition of the founders changes, the licence is reissued with a new check of the qualification requirements.

The qualification requirements in force since 1 July 2026. Category III: at least one attested engineering and technical worker on the staff (chief project engineer, chief project architect, chief designer or lead design engineer), an office owned or leased for at least a year, and software for calculations and drawings. Category II: in addition, at least five years' experience as a licensee and at least five completed objects of the second and/or third level as general contractor, or at least ten objects of the first and/or second level as a subcontractor. Category I: at least ten years' experience as a licensee — or at least seven years for those who designed offshore oil and gas projects in Kazakhstan, or at least five years as a category II licensee — and at least ten objects of the first and/or second level as general contractor, or at least twenty as a subcontractor. Experience is counted from the date of the licence and is annulled if the licence ends.

Specialists. Applicants and licensees must have on their staff specialists who have passed certification; a certified specialist may not work part-time in other organisations doing the same activity. The Construction Code's articles on certification take effect on 1 July 2028; until then a specialist's certificate is equal to an attestation in architecture, urban planning and construction.

Design organisations are licensed, not accredited. Accreditation is required of those providing technical supervision, technical inspection, project management and comprehensive non-departmental review.

A construction design organisation bears civil liability for the quality and soundness of its decisions, for defects of the documentation including those found in operation, and for its subcontractors' work; it provides author's support (author supervision) until the object is commissioned.

The relevant sub-type of the licence for works and services in environmental protection is “Environmental design and standard-setting for category I objects”. The licence is inalienable, class 1.

The requirements for a legal entity: a head with higher or secondary special education; at least two staff specialists with relevant higher education and at least three years' experience in environmental protection; an accredited specialised laboratory or a contract with an organisation that has one; and a software package for calculating emission standards.

The acts we read contain no requirement that the designer of hydrocarbon project documents be a Kazakhstan legal entity. The Subsoil Code requires a licence, and foreigners and foreign legal entities obtain permits on an equal footing with Kazakhstan ones unless laws or international treaties provide otherwise.

Design and estimate documentation made by a foreign legal entity for construction in Kazakhstan, except for objects of special economic zones and special industrial zones, must follow the Kazakhstan stages, composition and mandatory norms unless a ratified international treaty provides otherwise. The Code allows a departure from this rule by decision of the customer (investor) on the conditions named in the same provision, and for objects on the unified industrialisation map.

When a foreign person applies for a design licence, an equivalent permit document of a foreign state counts as experience.

Kazakhstan citizenship is required of the independent experts of the central commission — together with higher education in oil and gas and at least 15 years' experience.

Hydrocarbon subsoil users and their contractors buy goods, works and services by open tender, from a single source, by open reverse tender (electronic bidding), on commodity exchanges and — under a separate list — outside these methods.

When the winner is chosen, the bid price of a Kazakhstan producer of works and services is conditionally reduced by twenty per cent. Such a producer is an individual entrepreneur or a legal entity created under Kazakhstan law and located in Kazakhstan in which Kazakhstan citizens make up at least 95 % of the employees, not counting managers and specialists working under an intra-corporate transfer. For the discount to apply, the bidder files a statement of staff numbers. With equal prices the Kazakhstan producer is preferred.

When the tender covers a licensed activity, the bid must contain copies of the licences; non-residents file the same or equivalent documents.

The services of a design organisation and author supervision may be bought as one lot; so may design and turnkey construction. A subcontractor may not engage further subcontractors.

Single-source purchase is allowed for changes and additions to design or pre-design documentation from the supplier that developed it, and for the development analysis from the developer of the design or pre-design documentation. Author supervision services and the services of the independent experts engaged by the central commission and by the reserves commission are bought outside the procurement methods.

The share of in-country value in the works and services bought in a calendar year must be at least 70 %; this does not apply to complex projects in the Kazakhstan sector of the Caspian. The calculation under the unified methodology takes into account the share of the payroll of Kazakhstan staff in the supplier's total payroll. The 70 % rule does not extend to contracts concluded before the Code took effect.

These procurement rules do not apply to subsoil users that buy under the public procurement legislation or, as natural monopolies, under the natural monopolies legislation, to legal entities in which the national managing holding owns, directly or indirectly, fifty per cent or more of the voting shares (participation interests), or to complex projects. National managing holdings, national holdings, national companies and organisations in which they own fifty per cent or more of the voting shares (participation interests) buy under the Law on Procurement of Certain Quasi-Public Sector Entities, and under production sharing agreements and the contract approved by the President the procedures of those agreements apply.