Tag Archives: Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan’s energy company says Greek gas network deal may collapse

JULY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A deal for Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR to lead a €400m takeover of Greece’s gas pipeline network DESFA could collapse after the Greek government agreed a lower-than-expected domestic gas price rise.

Anar Mammadov, CEO of SOCAR’s Greek subsidiary, said after a meeting with Panos Skourletis, Greece’s energy minister that the gas price increase undermined DESFA’s profitability.

“If implemented, those changes would reduce the value of the company and its future profitability

dramatically,” he told media. “The only thing I can say right now is that I can’t see how the tender could be salvaged if those changes are implemented as planned.”

The Greek parliament still has to approve the price rise for it to be implemented.

In 2013, SOCAR won a bid to buy 66% of DESFA, Greece’s gas distributor. The deal was later frozen by the European Commission, citing the so-called Third Energy Package, a 2009 regulation designed to counter vertical integration between gas suppliers and distributors.

In recent months, though, Italy’s Snam has come forward as a potential partner for SOCAR. Snam would buy 17% and SOCAR would take 49%, which mean the takeover complies with the EU’s requirements.

Buying DESFA is important to Azerbaijan because Greece will play a major role hosting part of a pipeline network that will pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe.

The EU has called this new pipeline network a vital strategic goal to reduce its reliance on gas supplies from Russia with which it has had increasingly strained relations.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Azerbaijan’s Gilan Holding to construct Baku tower

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s construction company Gilan Holding picked Switzerland- based Liebherr as the provider of cranes for a skyscraper complex to be built in Baku. Gilan’s project for The Crescent Bay, will include a hotel, a shopping mall and a residential unit and is one of the biggest real estate projects currently planned in Azerbaijan.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Azerbaijan closes TV station after it tried to broadcast Gulen interview

JULY 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Azerbaijan suspended the Azerbaijani News Service (ANS), a popular privately owned TV station, after it said it would broadcast an interview it had taken in the US with Fathullah Gulen, an Islamic cleric whom Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused of masterminding a coup attempt.

Azerbaijan’s National Council for Television and Radio called the interview “propaganda” aimed at “undermining the strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and Turkey”. It immediately suspended ANS’s licence for one month and also took action to rescind it permanently.

Western governments have previously accused the Azerbaijani authorities of cracking down on any media considered even vaguely awkward. In 2015, it expelled the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Seen as mildly pro-government, over the past few years ANS has exercised a degree of independence and, until now, it was not affected by the government-led crackdown against dissenting media outlets.

Kenan Aliyev, an Azerbaijani journalist and former director of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Azerbaijani Service, called ANS’s closure despicable.

“ANS will suffer for a month and later they will be allowed to work but with less independence and more self-censorship,” Mr Aliyev told The Conway Bulletin. “There is no free press under the current regime.”

Mr Gulen is a former ally of Mr Erdogan. He has denied any link to the July 15 failed coup attempt. Azerbaijan and Turkey are close allies and, following Turkey’s lead, Azerbaijan has cracked down on institutions and officials with Gulen links, including stripping the Qafkas University in Baku of its independence.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Azerbaijani miner’s production shrinks by 5.9%

JULY 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijani miner Anglo Asian said production shrank by 5.9% to 33,837 ounces in the first half of 2016, compared to the same period last year. The company, listed in London, said it will keep its production target at 73,000/77,000 ounces for 2016 as it expects a boost in the second half.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Stock market: Anglo Asian Mining

JULY 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Helped by the Brexit impact, shares in Azerbaijan’s Anglo Asian Mining soared at the end of June. A positive outlook has now sent them up again. Its shares closed at 19.5p on Thursday, up 5.4% in one week.

At the end of June, Anglo Asian said it would sell the remainder of its 2016 production as futures, which gave a bullish message to investors, as the company tried to raise cash to pay out some of its debt.

Despite posting a production cut in H1 2016, the company was upbeat because the second quarter outperformed the first.

“The second half of the year has historically been our best performing half due to the seasonally better weather and our production will also benefit from the second SAG mill which is due to start operating next month,” CEO Reza Vaziri said in a statement.

Overall it was a positive week for most Central Asia and South Caucasus-linked stocks, lifted by increased stability in oil and gold prices.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

ADB sends loan to upgrade Azerbaijan’s electricity

JULY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — After lengthy negotiations, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) decided to loan $750m to Azerbaijan, to co-fund improvements to the country’s power distribution sector.

The aim is to connect peripheral regions outside Baku, which suffer from chronic system losses, to the main grid and reduce inefficiency and waste. But with electricity generation falling, Azerbaijan needs to put more attention and effort towards its upstream power sector, rather than the downstream.

It’s true that Azerbaijan is self- sufficient and produces all the electricity it consumes domestically, as the ADB also said.

The worry is rather on the shrinking margin of extra production allocated to exports.

In 2015 electricity exports halved compared to the previous year according to Azerbaijan’s customs agency. Azerbaijan exported 276.8m kWh of electricity in 2015 against 588.3m kWh in 2014.

And the problems continued this year.

In the first half of 2016, electricity generation at Azerlight, the country’s main producer, fell by 6%, compared to the same period last year, to 10.8b kWh. Consumption, on the other hand, continued to grow exponentially at annual rates of 5-9% since 2010.

For quite some time Azerbaijan has said it wants to export more electricity to its neighbours Turkey and Iran, a power export target that seems in vogue across the region currently.

Now this option seems to be falling off the priority list as the government has become increasingly worried that Azerbaijan could soon need external help to fulfil its domestic demand.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Azerbaijan and Armenia peace talks closer, says Lavrov

JULY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that a peace agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that Armenia-backed forces and Azerbaijan have fought over, could be closer than ever. Mr Lavrov met with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in Baku a week after meeting Armenia’s foreign minister Eduard Nalbandyan. Russia has mediated between the two governments after clashes erupted in April, breaking a 20-year ceasefire.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Armenia and Iran agree to 90-day visa-free regime

JULY 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran’s government said it had abolished a visa regime with Armenia, giving a potential boost to relations and trade between the two neighbours.

Armenia and Iran had said they wanted to scrap visa requirements in June, when their foreign ministers met in Tehran. At a cabinet meeting headed by President Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian government finally adopted the new visa-free regime.

Now, Iranians and Armenians will be able to travel visa-free between the two countries for stays of up to 90 days. This is particularly important for Armenia which is short of friends in the region. It has virtually no diplomatic and limited trade relations with two of its four neighbours — Azerbaijan and Turkey.

And Iran has said there is more room for cooperation with Armenia. After the lifting of international sanctions in January 2016, Iran said it wanted more integration with countries in the South Caucasus.

This week, Gazprom Armenia said that gas supplies via a pipeline across Georgia will stop for one month for scheduled repairs, a decision that will put Armenia’s power generation sector under stress.

Iranian officials immediately responded saying they were ready to pump more gas to Armenia to make up for the drop.

Iran sends gas to Armenia via a 140km pipeline completed in 2007.

For years, Iran and Armenia have said they want to increase the volumes of electricity and gas they exchange at the border and last month Armenian state-owned power distributor Electro Power Systems Operator said it will export around 1b kWh of electricity to Iran in 2016 from the Hradzan and Yerevan thermal power plants.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Poroshenko visits Azerbaijan’s capital

JULY 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko flew to Baku to meet his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev and sign several cooperation agreements. This is Mr Poroshenko’s first visit to Azerbaijan since taking office in 2014. In the few past months, Ukraine and Azerbaijan have proposed to boost oil trade across the Black Sea.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Power production falls in Azerbaijan

JULY 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Electricity generation fell by 6% in H1 2016, compared to the same period last year Azerlight, the country’s main producer, said in a statement. The company did not justify the cut in production, which stood at 10.8b kWh. Should this trend continue, it could erode Azerbaijan’s electricity surplus. According to official statistics, consumption, on the other hand, continued to grow exponentially since 2010 at annual rates of 5-9%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)