Production at the giant Kashagan oil field in Kazakhstan is unlikely to restart this summer as the companies involved in the consortium running the project are still awaiting a report on a gas leak that closed the field last October, people familiar with the project said Wednesday. Resuming output is important so the companies, which include Exxon Mobil Corp. , Royal Dutch Shell PLC, France’s SA and Italy’s SpA, can start generating revenue to recoup some of the $50 billion they have already invested in Kashagan over the last 17 years. It is also important for the Kazakh government, which had based its economic forecasts on revenue from Kashagan, where output was expected to ramp up to 370,000 barrels a day from 180,000 barrels a day initially. “There’s no date for restart, but it certainly won’t be this summer,” said one person familiar with the project. In February, Claudio […]