Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov has said operations at the massive Kashagan oil field will resume by 2017.
Masimov told lawmakers on June 17 that the North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC), the international consortium running the Kashagan project, will cover the costs related to the replacement of underwater pipelines.
The frequently delayed project suspended work in September 2013, weeks after production finally kicked off, when the two 90-kilometer pipelines linking the Caspian offshore site to Kazakhstan's mainland started leaking.
NCOC said toxic gas had corroded the pipelines.
Kashagan contains some 13 billion barrels of recoverable oil, one of the largest oil fields discovered in the last 50 years.
But the project is a decade behind schedule and the estimated cost of the project has shot up from $50 billion originally to $135 billion.
