Category Archives: Uncategorised

Azerbaijan-based Zenith receives payments

NOV. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An Azerbaijan-based subsidiary of Canada’s Zenith Energy said it received the first payments for its oil sales at three onshore fields it is developing with state-owned SOCAR. Zenith Aran Oil and SOCAR had signed a production sharing agreement in March. Zenith has an 80% share in the Muradkhanli, Jafarli and Zardab fields for the next 25 years. SOCAR will retain the remaining 20%. Oil from these fields is sold internationally at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. On the same day, British investment company Gunsynd invested £100,000 ($125,000) in Zenith Energy, as part of a £500,000 fundraising effort.

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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)

Japan’s Mitsubishi signs second power plant deal in Uzbekistan

NOV. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation won a contract to build a 900MW combined-cycle power plant in the Ferghana Valley in eastern Uzbekistan, a critical development for the country’s power generation sector.

This is Mitsubishi’s second deal in Uzbekistan in the past month. In October, it agreed to build a second co-generation station at the Navoi thermal power plant. In July 2015, Mitsubishi had won a tender to build a fertiliser plant in Navoi.

Mitsubishi said that the Japanese and Uzbek government will finance construction of the Turakurgan Thermal Power Station.

“This project will be financed by an Official Development Assistance (ODA) Loan provided by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and Uzbek government funds,” the company said in a statement.

The parties did not disclose the value of the contract, this secrecy is not unusual in Uzbekistan, but an earlier assessment of the project said it would cost $704m.

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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)

Kazakh President considers name change for Astana

ALMATY, NOV. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s parliament proposed renaming the capital city, Astana, after president Nursultan Nazarbayev.

It is now for Mr Nazarbayev, 76, to agree to accept the proposal or not. He has previously rejected a similar proposal but over the past weeks and months momentum appears to have built up towards embellishing Mr Nazarbayev’s persona, which some describe as a personality cult.

Last week the Central Bank unveiled a new bank note with his portrait on it, dozens of university, libraries and schools are named after him and in 2011, a statue of him was erected by a park in Almaty.

The proposal to rename Astana, the city that Mr Nazarbayev built on the Kazakh steppe, was buried in the last paragraph of a lengthy monologue lauding the president’s achievement since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Mr Nazarbayev has been Kazakhstan’s only post-Soviet leader.

Astana means capital in Kazakh and has been developed as a brand. Many of Mr Nazarbayev’s pet projects — an airline, a cycling team, a football team — are called Astana and wear the yellow and blue of Kazakhstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)

Kazakh court sentences IS sympathiser

NOV. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Astana sentenced a man to six years in jail for promoting literature supporting IS in Syria. The unnamed man reportedly encouraged his followers on social media sites to join him in Syria to fight for IS.

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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan warn about cold weather

NOV. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Extreme cold weather forced schools to close and roads to be blocked off in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The unseasonably cold weather recorded a temperature of minus 40 Celsius in Ust Kamenogorsk in eastern Kazakhstan. In Astana, regarded as the second coldest capital in the world after Ulaan Bator, temperatures of minus 35 Celsius were 30 degrees lower than the seasonal average.

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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)

Karimov Foundation opens in Uzbekistan

NOV. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The youngest daughter of former Uzbek leader Lola Karimova- Tillyaeva and her widowed mother, Tatyana, said that they had founded the Islam Karimov Foundation to promote his legacy. The Foundation, likely to be based on a museum and library, will be as controversial as Karimov was. He was reviled by human rights groups for being a dictator who crushed all dissent.

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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)

France’s Veolia beats rivals to win $800 contract for Armenia’s water

NOV. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — French utility company Veolia will become the near-monopoly water distribution and sewage management operator in Armenia, after beating European rivals to the €800m ($845m) contract.

Veolia, one of the biggest water and waste management companies in the world with around 175,000 employees and revenues of over $30b/year, already controls Yerevan Djur, a local utility company that supplies water and sewage services to the capital. Through this entity, Veolia already employs 1,200 workers in Armenia and, under the new 15 year contract, it will become one of the country’s largest employers.

Veolia’s management hailed the tender victory as a major achievement.

It beat French rival Saur, Italy’s Acea and a German-Russian consortium for the contract.

“This success is exemplary: it is the result of a joint effort by Veolia’s teams who have managed to capitalise on the experience and professionalism of the Group’s employees in Yerevan and to apply the best practices developed by a network of experts working in over 40 countries,” Malika Ghendouri, Veolia’s vice president of Central and Eastern Europe, said in a statement.

Armenia doesn’t have natural resources on the scale of its neighbours Azerbaijan or even Georgia, making water management one of the most lucrative sectors for Western companies.

Saur had managed four other major water utility companies in Armenia but will now relinquish control to Veolia at the start of 2017.

Several international financial institutions, among which the EBRD and the European Investment Bank, pledged to support Veolia’s infrastructure work in Armenia, which the company forecast at $200m in the next four years.

One of the reasons that Veolia won the contract was its apparent drive to improve water services across the region. Armenia’s Soviet-era infrastructure needs updating.

Allegations of corruption have marred the privatisation of Armenia’s water utilities since the early 2000s. The World Bank, which masterminded the privatisation, dismissed the allegations in 2007 and 2008.

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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)

Kazakh athlete loses medals

NOV. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ilya Ilyn, the pin-up of Kazakhstan’s Olympic team and the only Kazakh athlete to have won two gold medals, was stripped of his weightlifting victories in the Beijing 2008 Olympics and the London 2012 Olympics because his blood samples failed a drugs retest. Mr Ilyn is a major celebrity in Kazakhstan. Several other Kazakh weightlifters are also accused of doping.

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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)

Armenia to issue second bond

NOV. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia plans to issue its second ever eurobond by 2019 or 2020, finance minister Arshaluys Margaryan told Reuters. Mr Margaryan did not specify the size of the eurobond. Armenia issued its first eurobond in 2013. It was dubbed the Kardashian bond, after Armenian- American actress Kim Kardashian, and was valued at $700m.

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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)

Georgia-Russia mend ties via the Orthodox Church

NOV. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The head of the Georgian Orthodox Church Patriarch Ilia II flew to Moscow for a week of meetings with senior members of the Russian Orthodox Church, hooked around the 70th birthday of its leader Patriarch Kirill (Nov. 20).

Visits by Patriarch Ilia to Moscow are important because they act as an unofficial diplomatic channel between Moscow and Tbilisi. At times, such as immediately after a war between the two side in August 2008, this channel has been vital and the only way the two sides were able to communicate.

On his arrival in Moscow, Patriarch Ilia appeared to recognise the importance of these meetings.

“Georgian and the Russian Orthodox Churches have great importance for our countries and people. The relationship between us ought to be better than it is now, and we should do everything to improve the relationship between the political figures of our countries. I think we can do this. We need each other and we should help each other,” he was quoted by media as saying.

He plays an important role in domestic Georgian politics, often intervening to mediate in disputes or set the tone in national debates.

Patriarch Ilia is the highest ranking public figure from Georgia to have travelled to Moscow since the 2008 war. On a trip in 2013, he also met with Russian president Vladimir Putin. It is unclear whether he will meet Mr Putin on this trip, which is dominated by meetings with various Russian Orthodox officials.

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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)