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BP agrees Caspian Sea exploration deal with Azerbaijani company

MAY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — BP and Azerbaijan’s state-owned SOCAR signed a deal to jointly explore for oil in a new block at the offshore North Absheron Basin in the Caspian Sea, a sign that BP is taking a long-term approach to Azerbaijan despite the low global oil prices.

The North Absheron Basin is an oil field located just north of Baku. It should not be confused with the Absheron gas field located 100 km south of Baku and currently exploited by France’s Total and GDF Suez together with SOCAR. Absheron is the name of the peninsula where Baku is located.

SOCAR CEO Rovnag Abdullayev and BP’s regional representative Gordon Birrell said they were satisfied.

“Today we are signing a new memorandum of understanding which will lay the foundation of a new off- shore project. This will become another opportunity underpinning our long-term relationship with BP,” Mr Abdullayev said before Mr Birrell echoed his remarks.

Details on the deal are scant. Block D230 in the North Absheron Basin has a reservoir depth of 3,000-5,000 metres. It is still unclear just how much hydrocarbon resources it holds and how much both companies will have to invest to make it profitable.

The deal is also important in other respects. It allows SOCAR to reinforce its ties with BP, sharply criticised in the last few months by President Ilham Aliyev for failing to maintain oil and gas production.

The latest data showed that BP’s oil output was flat in the first quarter of 2016, compared to last year, while gas production grew by 3.8% to 2.7b cubic metres in the same period.

Sustained low oil prices over the past two years have taken a toll on SOCAR, which has embarked on a campaign to cut costs and sell off assets. SOCAR, though, appears ready to commit to new exploration ventures. Earlier this month it also agreed a deal with Uzbekistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Kazakhstan’s GDP shrinks

MAY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s GDP shrank by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2016, the first dip in seven years, according to the Statistics Committee. Trade, telecoms, and industrial production slowed significantly. Analysts at Halyk Finance forecast that Kazakhstan’s GDP will grow by just 0.2% this year, the lowest growth since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Kazakhstan, like the rest of the region, is struggling to deal with the knock on effects of a recession in Russia and collapse in oil prices.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Armenian C Bank cuts interest rate

MAY 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s Central Bank cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point to 7.75%, its lowest rate since November 2014, as it tried to counter sharply falling prices. Annualised inflation at the end of April measured minus 1.9%, the Central Bank said last week. It has steadily lowered interest rates from a high of 10.5% in July 2015.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Ex-Kazakh minister to head Baiterek

MAY 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Former Kazakh minister of economy Yerbolat Dossayev took the post of chairman of Baiterek, a state-owned holding that manages several financial vehicles. This is effectively a job swap. Mr Dossayev replaces Kuandyk Bishimbayev at Baiterek. Earlier this month Mr Bishimbayev was made the minister of economy. Mr Dossayev resigned as economy minister after protests over planned changes to the land code spread across the country earlier this month.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Thousands of Tajik students march through Khujand in support of Rakhmon

DUSHANBE, MAY 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tens of thousands of students marched through Khujand, north Tajikistan, in support of constitutional changes that will extend the powers of President Emomali Rakhmon.

The authorities organised the demonstration, highlighting how they are increasingly using students to manipulate politics. Student rallies have previously been used to demonstrate outside embassies of countries where Tajik opposition activists have fled to.

Blocking roads, students marched through Khujand chanting: “We are with you, the Leader of Nation. Youth are for the country’s stable development.”

A Dushanbe-based analyst, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the authorities were using students to try to show how popular Mr Rakhmon is.

“Students are forced to rally. If they don’t obey, they will be kicked out of their universities and if they protest against the agitations, they are called traitors and imprisoned,” he said.

A referendum, planned for May 22, will scrap limits on presidential terms, lower the age a person can run for president to 30 from 35 and ban parties with religious affiliations.

Mr Rakhmon is hedging his bets. After the constitutional changes are approved through the referendum, and nobody doubts that this will be passed, he will be allowed to run Tajikistan for as long as he likes. And, by lowering the age a person can become president, he is also potentially allowing his son, who will be 33-years-old at the next presidential election in 2020, to take over

As for banning political parties with religious associations, the now banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan had been the main opposition group until its leaders were arrested or forced into exile last year.

Jamshed, a 22-year-old Tajik student, told the Conway Bulletin’s correspondent in Dushanbe that the authorities had forced the students to demonstrate in a faux show of support for President Rakhmon.

“I was told to prepare a speech in Russian language about the importance of referendum and speak during a state TV roundtable program,” he said. “Government officials checked my speech and then let me present it.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Tashir opens new mall in Armenian capital

MAY 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian real estate holding Tashir Group opened a new $14m mall in Yerevan. Tashir Group, owned by Moscow-based Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan, has poured cash into several real estate projects in Armenia in the past few years. Last year, it bought the electricity distributor Electric Networks of Armenia from Russian state-owned Inter RAO.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Kazakh company fails to pay salaries

MAY 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A Kazakh court ordered the seizure of assets at Munai Service Aktobe, a small oil service company in north- western Kazakhstan, after it failed to pay 17.3m tenge ($52,000) in wage arrears. The Aktobe administration said that there are several companies in the oil and gas sector whose wage arrears are “chronic”. In 2011, protests by oil workers in Western Kazakhstan triggered clashes that killed at least a dozen people. With increasing frequency, reports are emerging from Kazakhstan that companies are failing to pay their workers on time.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Gay rights activists protest in Georgia against WCF meeting

MAY 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Georgia arrested several gay rights activists ahead of a planned demonstration outside a meeting of the US-based World Congress of Families, highlighting tension in Georgian society between liberal and conservative factions.

The activists accused the World Congress of Families, which campaigns against gay rights and heavily promotes conservative Christian values, of being deliberately provocative by choosing May 15 – 18 as the date for its annual meeting.

Importantly May 17 is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. In Georgia, it is also the anniversary of violent attacks on a pro-gay rights march in Tbilisi in 2013. Around two dozen activists were wounded in the clashes, one of the worst attacks in the former Soviet Union on gay rights activists.

Outside the World Congress of Families meeting activists placed a rainbow-coloured stool, or taburetka.

“The taburetka became a symbol of oppression and daily violence,” Mariam Kvaratskhelia, representative of the LGBT Georgia lobby group, was quoted in DFW as saying.

“LGBT people exist in Georgia and they’re experiencing daily oppression. We’re calling the Georgian Orthodox Church to stop generating hate towards LGBT persons within society.”

In the 2013 attack on gay-rights campaigners, a heavily-bearded Orthodox priest was photographed wielding a stool and using it as a weapon against the activists.

It was an image that has come to represent reactionary forces associated with the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Georgian society is generally regarded as being conservative, an issue that is likely to play a role in October’s parliamentary election. Politicians have already been looking to win support from the large groups which support the Georgian Orthodox Church. This group is generally considered to be anti-gay rights.

Opinion polls have shown that the election is going to be close.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Kyrgyz court sentences for espionage

MAY 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A Kyrgyz court sentenced Altynbek Muraliyev, son of former PM Amangeldi Muraliyev, to 12 years in prison for treason and espionage. Muraliyev was arrested in November 2014, while attempting to leave Kyrgyzstan. The National Security Service said he had given classified information to foreign governments.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Kyrgyzstan introduces media law

MAY 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz legislators proposed a new bill to restrict foreign media funding into the country, a law that could further undermine Kyrgyzstan’s shaky freedom of expression record. The new law would ban foreigners from setting up media organisations in the country and restrict foreign funding to 20% of an organisation’s total revenue. Media lobby groups have said that this law will serve only to restrict media and reduce free speech.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)