The government of Kazakhstan has warned the consortium lead by Italian oil company ENI that it still has still not offered a plan for the treatment and disposal of sulphur at the Kashagan oilfield.

It’s the latest injury from a project now projected to cost $136 billion to develop, news agency Dow Jones reported Thursday.

Yesterday, Reuters recorded Kazakh Ecology Minister Nurlan Iskakov imposing a $609 million “ecological” fine on the Chevron-led Tengizchevroil oil venture, citing piles of yellow sulphur still stored openly at the Tengiz oilfield. Smaller fines had previously been levelled at Chevron for yellow heaps of sulphur “the size of soccer fields”.

Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and Total, among others, join ENI at Kashagan, where development has been plagued by cost overruns of more than 50 percent, and delays that have pushed the original 2005 target for pumping oil to 2010.

Scandoil.com reported the challenge issued by Kazakhstan to European Union competition commissioner, Andreas Piebalgs, to come to Almaty and discuss “the economic damage inflicted on Kazakhstan” by Kashagan developers, for which $10 billion in compensation is now sought.