ASTANA: Kazakhstan’s Justice Ministry said on Wednesday that enforcement actions against the operator of Kazakhstan’s offshore Kashagan oilfield had been temporarily suspended due to an appeal by the operator, but that it still intended to pursue the case. The ministry said in a ‌statement that enforcement ‌would be suspended while a court ‌reviewed the appeal by the North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC). But it also said it would continue to pursue the case, in which the government has ordered NCOC to pay a fine amounting to nearly $5 billion. “The work on recovery of funds from NCOC for the benefit of the state will ‌be continued in accordance ‌with the law,” the statement said. NCOC, a joint venture ‌of Shell, TotalEnergies , ExxonMobil and China’s CNPC, ‌has been mired in a lengthy legal standoff with the Kazakh government, which accuses it of environmental violations related to sulphur storage and has ordered it to ‌pay the fine. Russia’s Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday that Kazakhstan had suspended enforcement actions against NCOC, citing a Justice Ministry database. In July, Reuters reported that Kazakhstan had warned NCOC’s head that he faced criminal prosecution if the fine was not paid. There was no immediate comment from NCOC, which has denied the environmental violations, and challenged the fine. Kazakhstan produces around 2% of global daily oil supply. Critics and some international oil majors have accused Kazakhstan of seeking to increase its control over its oil industry via “resource nationalism”, an accusation Astana rejects.