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Kazakhstan-focused Nostrum slashes revenues

NOV. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In its financial results for the first nine months of the year, Kazakhstan- focused Nostrum Oil & Gas said revenues were down 40% to $374.8m. Low oil prices and back taxes dented Nostrum’s financial position. Nostrum is investing around $500m in the GTU3 gas treatment facility, which will increase production to 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) by 2017 from around 40,000boepd.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

New gas pipeline opened in Kazakhstan

NOV. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s pipeline monopoly Kaztransgas launched the $3.5b Beineu- Bozoi-Shymkent gas pipeline, five months early. The pipeline is important because it pumps gas from fields in the north-west to urban centres in the south.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

Kazakh investment Nurly Zhol slows

NOV. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Incompetent local administrations have delayed the Kazakh government’s centrepiece $9b Nurly Zhol infrastructure investment policy, Yerbolat Dossayev, Kazakhstan’s minister of economy, said. Nurly Zhol, which means bright path, was announced last year and was supposed to transform the Kazakh economy. It has failed to have an impact.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

Azerbaijan says to help Turkey-Russia row

NOV. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Azerbaijani government said that it is willing to be involved in an effort to reconcile Turkey and Russia after a Turkish warplane shot down a Russian fighter-jet over Syria earlier this month. Azerbaijan counts both Turkey and Russia as its two closest allies. Worsening relations between Turkey and Russia could potentially be a problem for Azerbaijan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

IMF keen on privatisations in Kazakhstan

NOV. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The IMF applauded Kazakhstan’s plans to sell off chunks of up to 50% in 43 high profile state-owned companies.

In a report, the IMF also said that ditching the tenge’s peg to the US dollar in August will push up inflation in the short term.

“The decision to float the exchange rate in August, followed by the introduction of a new policy interest rate (base rate) as the new monetary policy anchor in September, set in motion the process of modernizing the monetary policy framework,” the IMF said in its report.

Under pressure from depressed oil prices and a fall in the value of the rouble, the Kazakh Central Bank dropped its peg to the US dollar in August. The tenge plunged in value.

Strapped for cash, the Kazakh government said earlier this month that it wanted to sell off chunks of its biggest companies to private investors. The plan received a qualified endorsement from the IMF.

“We welcome these initiatives and the authorities’ objective of implementing the privatisation program competitively and in a way that ensures genuine private ownership and control,” it said.

The issue for investors is which stock market the government lists the shares on.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

Tajikistan’s debt increases

NOV. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan debt-to-GDP ratio will rise to 30% by the end of the year from 22.5% at the start of the year, media quoted various analysts as saying. Tajikistan’s growing debt ratio highlights the impact of the economic downturn on the economies of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Tajikistan’s remittances from Russia have fallen 40% this year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

40,000 workers in Kazakhstan face threat

NOV. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik said 40,000 people working in the country’s oil and gas sector could lose their jobs next year if energy prices continued to stay low. He said the depressed price of oil had decimated the oil and gas sector.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

Sweden starts Uzbek murder trial

NOV. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A trial has started in Sweden of a man accused of attempting to murder Obidkhon Qori Nazarov, an Uzbek dissident, in 2012. Yury Zhukovsky is accused of shooting Mr Nazarov twice in the head outside his apartment. In an interview with Eurasianet, the Swedish prosecutor said that he thought Mr Zhukovsky was linked to the Uzbek authorities. Mr Nazarov had fled Uzbekistan in 2006 after the Uzbek authorities accused him of trying to plot a coup.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

Rosneft buys into Armenia

NOV. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rosneft, the Russian oil and gas company, bought Armenia’s Petrol Market chain of petrol stations for $40m, media reported, extending Russian influence over the country. Media reported that the deal was made in August but only reported now.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

Uzbekistan reduces child cotton pickers

NOV. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A report by the UN’s International Labour Office (ILO) said the use of child labour to pick cotton in Uzbekistan has reduced although it hasn’t been totally eradicated.

The ILO’s findings are important because Uzbekistan has come under growing criticism for its use of children, medical staff and teachers for picking cotton. Cotton is one of Uzbekistan’s biggest exports, although many Western companies have stopped buying Uzbek cotton.

“The use of children in the cotton harvest has become rare and sporadic,” the ILO said in its report. “Authorities have taken a range of measures to reduce the incidence of child labour and make it socially unacceptable.”

It said that a campaign to stop teachers and medics being used to pick cotton has been less successful.

Activists rank Uzbekistan as one of the worst countries in the world for upholding human rights.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)