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Georgia’s city water chief quits

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Alexander Mikeladze, director of Batumi Water, resigned from his post after he became involved in a public scandal. Mr Mikeladze is accused of having abused his position of director of the water distribution company. He allegedly cut off the water supply to a restaurant that failed to provide him the table he wanted. The accusation against Mr Mikeladze comes at a complicated time for worker-management relations in Georgia. With economic conditions worsening, Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili has been talking up the need for harmony.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Stock market: Central Asia Metals

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan-based Central Asia Metals has performed well in the past weeks, after its stock price dipped to 124p on January 20, its lowest level since August 2013.

The stock had suffered from poor market conditions for commodities, but it picked up since it published an upbeat outlook for 2016, after it received government approval at the end of 2015 for the expansion of its Kounrad project in central Kazakhstan.

Analysts, however, remain cautious on the performance of the stock.

Peter Mallin-Jones, mining analyst at Peel Hunt which is a London based brokerage focused on small and medium sized companies, told The Bulletin that his downgraded share target price still held.

“The upward trend is in line with the general moves in the mining sector. KAZ Minerals is also showing a similar trend in the London Stock Exchange,” he said.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Georgian court sentences IS recruiter

MARCH 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Georgia sentenced a man to 14 years in prison for recruiting men to join the radical IS group in Syria and Iraq. Three other men were imprisoned for trying to join IS. Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, which has strong ethnic and cultural links with Chechnya which it borders, has become an important recruiting ground for IS.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Georgian wine exports increase

MARCH 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Imports of Georgian wine to Russia more than doubled in the first two months of the years compared to the same period in 2015, Georgia’s national wine agency reported. Wine is both an important export for Georgia and also an important cultural identifier. Russia recently lifted a ban on the import of Georgian wine.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

BP plans platform closures in Azerbaijan

MARCH 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP plans to close oil production at the West Azeri and Guneshli platforms later this year for routine maintenance work, media reported quoting the company’s head in Azerbaijan. The platforms are part of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli complex which forms the mainstay of Azerbaijan’s oil output. Closing production at the two platforms will dent output.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Armenian airline makes maiden flight

MARCH 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia, a new low-cost airline, will make its maiden flight from Yerevan to Tel Aviv on April 21, media reported quoting Robert Hovhannisyan, one of the airlines shareholders. Speculation has been growing in Armenia about whether the low-cost airline will get off the ground. It biggest shareholder is Tamaz Gaiashvili, the founder of the Georgian Airzena airline.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

KBR wins refinery contract in Azerbaijan

MARCH 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – US-based engineering company KBR said its joint venture in Azerbaijan had won a project management consulting contract for the Heydar Aliyev oil refinery near Baku. SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state owned energy company, is a partner in the joint venture with KBR. The companies did not disclose the value of the contract.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Armenian hydro snatches market share

MARCH 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s overall electricity production was 5.2% higher in January compared to January 2015, mostly due to the sharp increase in hydropower generation.

While traditional sources of power such as thermal and nuclear increased only marginally, production from hydropower and small hydropower stations grew by 23.7%, according to Armenia’s Statistics Committee.

Small hydroelectric plants, in particular, have heavily increased their contribution to Armenia’s total power output.

Small hydropower plants are defined in Armenia as power plants that generate up to 30 MW. In Armenia there are now 173 small hydropower plants, more than twice as many as there were in 2010 and six times more than in 1991. Today, they account for around 9% of the country’s power generation.

Individual entrepreneurs, including many people linked to government officials and ministers, have driven the rise in these small hydro- power stations, building along rivers and generating power which links straight into the national grid.

But while the government has welcomed the rise in small hydro- power stations, anti-corruption campaigners have linked them to money laundering and corruption and environmentalists have said that they are damaging rivers’ eco-systems and creating eye-sores.

“Critics say the plants already in operation are sucking up most of the water in the river system, destroying traditional trout fisheries and depriving area residents of reliable access to water,” Kristine Aghalaryan said in report in the Hetq newspaper.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Kazakh Tele2 receives credit line

MARCH 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh mobile operator Tele2 signed an agreement for a long-term credit line with Kazkommertsbank, one of the country’s largest commercial banks. The company will use the funds to upgrade its network. Tele2 Kazakhstan and Altel completed their merger on March 1. Before the market was liberalised earlier this year, Altel, a subsidiary of state owned Kazakhtelecom, was the only company to own a 4G licence in Kazakhstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Azerbaijan’s Azerkimya signs contract with Technip

MARCH 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Technip Italy and Azerkimya signed an agreement for the reconstruction of the Sumgayit ethylene-polyethylene plant, 30km north of Baku. Technip Italy is a subsidiary of France’s Technip, an oil service company, which left Azerbaijan in January. Azerkimya is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)