It was once a massive Permian and Carboniferous reef complex covering an area 30 by 15 square kilometres (11.6 by 5.8 sq mi).

In 1992, AGIP (now Eni) and British Gas were awarded sole negotiating rights, forming a partnership company.

In 1997, Texaco (now Chevron Corporation) and Lukoil signed a 40-year production sharing agreement with the original two companies and the Kazakhstan government to develop the field for world markets.

[2] The Republic of Kazakhstan appointed Maksat Idenov to lead the negotiations,[3] after which the arbitration was suspended[4] towards an amicable settlement of the dispute[5] and KazMunayGas engaged in entrance into the project in 2010.

[7][8] Located in the Uralsk Region of West Kazakhstan, it was discovered in 1979 by a well drilled to investigate a structural high detected during a reinterpretation of 2D seismic shot between 1970 and 1971.

From the Late Devonian to the middle Carboniferous the field was an atoll, over which in the Early Permian a system of reefs were built.

A west-east cross section through Karachaganak resembles the twin humps of a camel, indicating two separate reef highs.

Likewise, the large variation of deposition has led to four different types of carbonate cores in the structure: biothermal, biomorphic detrital, organo-clastic, and biochemogenic.

Northern reservoirs tend to be wet; the southwest part of the basin is more gas prone than are the east and southeast.

The villagers, led by the local organization Zhasil Dala (Green Steppe), maintain that they are suffering a host of illnesses and environmental degradation due to exposure to toxic emissions from the Karachaganak Field, situated five kilometers away.

In 2002, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), provided $150 million in loans to Lukoil for development of the Karachaganak Field.

[16] One of the complaints results in a report by the Auditor, published in April 2008, which documented numerous instances of non-compliance with IFC standards at Karachaganak.

[17] Zhasil Dala works in partnership on this campaign with the US-based environmental justice organization Crude Accountability and the Kazakhstani Ecological Society Green Salvation, among others.