BG Group has deferred indefinitely a planned investment in Karachaganak, one of the biggest gas and oil fields in Kazakhstan, in the most significant energy project delay as a result of the global financial crisis.

Karachaganak phase 3 had been planned to come on stream by the end of 2012, raising the field’s production to 16bn cubic metres of gas a year and 335,000 barrels of liquids a day, but BG has decided on a delay in the expectation that the cost will be lower in the future.