Tag Archives: Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan and Armenia to talk Nagorno-Karabakh

OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan met to discuss the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in talks mediated by French president Francois Hollande.

The official outcome of the talks — agreeing to more talks — may appear inconsequential but meetings between President Serzh Sargyan of Armenia and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan are rare.

“Status quo is not sustainable,” Mr Hollande’s office said after the meeting. “(Azerbaijan and Armenia) have agreed to continue the dialogue, in particular with a new meeting in September 2015 in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.”

Nagorno-Karabakh has been described as one of the world’s most dangerous frozen conflicts. Armenia and Azerbaijan fought over the region in the early 1990s and only a shaky 1994 UN-brokered ceasefire keeps the two- sides apart. Recently, though, there has been an increase in the amount of fighting around Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia-back rebels now control the region but there is a constant background noise of sabre rattling. Azerbaijan has been re-arming its military, buying top-of-the-range kit from Israel. Armenia has quietly been rehousing Armenians chased out of Syria in Nagorno-Karabakh.

This was the second meeting this year between Mr Aliyev and Mr Sargsyan. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin hosted a meeting in August.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)

Azerbaijan oversupplying oil

OCT. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Goldman Sachs has said Azerbaijan is partly to blame for falling oil prices by oversupplying the market. West Texas Intermediate is trading at around $79.58 a barrel, its lowest for two years.

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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)

Court row over oil field sale in Azerbaijan

OCT. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Zaur Leshkasheli, a Russian oligarch, is suing investment bank Credit Suisse for not selling his 51 percent stake in the Kyurovdag oil field in Azerbaijan in 2008 for a high enough value, media reported. The court case should expose some of the murkier deal-making around the Caspian Sea.

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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)

Chinese company to sell pipes for Azerbaijan-Turkey-Greece link

OCT. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Chinese steelmaker Baoshan Iron & Steel Co ltd (Baosteel) said it had won a contract to supply pipes for the TANAP gas pipeline running to Turkey from Azerbaijan. The contract is significant because it means Chinese companies are competing for contracts along the South Caucasus energy transit route.

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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)

Azerbaijan needs a transparency compliance check

OCT. 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a sort of best-practise benchmark for countries heavily involved in mining or oil production, told Azerbaijan that it needs to undergo a compliance check five months earlier than planned.

EITI chief Clare Short, a former British minister, said that concerns over Azerbaijan’s recent crackdown on civil society had triggered the compliance check.

“The situation facing civil society in Azerbaijan is clearly problematic,” Ms Short wrote in a statement.

“The Board discussed the findings of the fact finding mission and expressed deep concern. The Board hopes that Azerbaijan will open up more space for civil society to make its essential contribution to the EITI as laid down in our Standard.”

International pressure has been increasing on Azerbaijan over its treatment of opposition activists and human rights defenders. The EITI’s statement will be particularly irritating to Azerbaijan, though, as it has previously touted its links to EITI as evidence of its good intentions.

Being ordered to undergo a compliance check before 2015 will be publicly humiliating.

And there is some evidence that the pressure on Azerbaijan is beginning to tell. On Oct. 17, President Ilham Aliyev released four opposition activists as part of a wider amnesty.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)

Russia army exercises in Armenia

OCT. 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around 3,000 Russian soldiers stationed in Armenia staged a week- long military exercise. The exercise is a reminder of Russia’s presence in the region and the fragile peace in the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan has made it clear that it still wants to re-take the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh currently run by pro-Armenia forces.

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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)

Iran leader to visit Azerbaijan

OCT. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani will visit Azerbaijan later this year or the start of 2015, media reported, another sign that relations between the two neighbours are improving. Relations between Azerbaijan and Iran have improved since Mr Rouhani came to power.

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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)

Georgia and Azerbaijan to open up BTK railway

OCT. 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia and Azerbaijan have opened up their Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line project to outsiders, Azerbaijan’s transport minister Ziya Mammadov said at a conference. The project will link the Caspian Sea with the Black Sea, aiding transport between Asia and the Europe.

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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)

Statoil sells Azerbaijani Shah Deniz stake

OCT. 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Norwegian energy company Statoil sold its final 15.5% stake in the Shah Deniz oil field in the Azerbaijani Caspian Sea to Malaysia’s Petronas for $2.25b.

Officially, Statoil said the sale was part of a worldwide reorganisation. For the partners in Shah Deniz, though, the sale represents yet another major shake-up of one of Azerbaijan’s biggest energy projects.

The sale is also another indicator that Western energy companies are looking to reign in investments that require large capital commitments.

In May, Statoil sold a 10% stake in Shah Deniz to BP and SOCAR and French energy company Total sold its 10% stake in the project to TPAO. For its part, Petronas has been looking to diversify its energy assets across the world.

The other shareholders in Shah Deniz are: BP (28.8% of the project); Turkey’s TPAO (19%); Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR (16.7%); Russia’s Lukoil (10%) and National Iranian Oil Company (10%).

Clearly the diverse nature of Shah Deniz’s stakeholders makes it a complex project. Azerbaijan is also staking much of its future riches on the success of the project and Europe is hoping to pump around a fifth of its gas from Shah Deniz over the next few years.

Statoil’s deal with Petronas also included selling its stakes in the South Caucasus pipeline. It kept, though, its 8.56% stake in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil field and also its 20% stake in the TAP pipeline that will pump gas from Azerbaijan to Europe.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 204, published on Oct. 15 2014)

IMF downgraded Azerbaijan economic growth

OCT. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The IMF downgraded its economic growth figures for Azerbaijan to 4.5% this year because of the impact of sanctions on Russia, media reported. Earlier, the IMF had predicted growth of 5% for Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s economy is less impacted by Russia’s economy than other former Soviet states.

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(News report from Issue No. 204, published on Oct. 15 2014)