At stake: the Kashagan field
Kashagan deal 'on horizon'
All but one member of the Eni-led AgipKCO consortium developing the Kashagan oilfield, in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea, have agreed to raise state oil company KazMunaiGaz's stake in the project, according to reports.
Kazakhstan has been at loggerheads with the Eni-led group over cost overruns and production delays at the Caspian Sea field - the biggest oil find in three decades.
On Saturday, the sides set 20 December as the deadline to find a settlement.
"According to a new memorandum of understanding, all consortium members except one have reached principal agreement to hand over parts of their stakes in the project necessary to raise interest to a level of a large participant," KazMunaiGaz said in a statement.
The Kazakh company did not say which company opposed the agreement or what percentage stake it was aiming at.
It was also unclear whether the transfer of shares could go ahead without this company's approval.
ExxonMobil has 18.52% in Kashagan, alongside Eni, Shell and Total , which have stakes of similar size.
Smaller stakes are held by ConocoPhilips with 9.26 % and Japan's Inpex with 8.33%. KazMunaiGas itself has 8.3%.
Oil executives said they expected the US companies to take a tougher line with the government than their European and Japanese partners, who have made such concessions before, in Russia and Venezuela.
In October, Interfax news agency reported that talks on a Kashagan settlement had stalled as ExxonMobil was blocking the expansion of the state's share in the project.
An Eni spokesman declined comment, as did a Shell spokeswoman.
The other companies could not be reached for comment, Reuters said.