NOV. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-listed copper producer Central Asia Metals said it bought an 80% interest in a copper exploration property in northern Kazakhstan. The company said that it paid local company GRK-Aksu around $1m for the stake and has pledged to invest another $1m in the deposit in 2017.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
NOV. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gabidulla Abdrakhimov, mayor of Shymkent in southern Kazakhstan, flew to London to meet British business representatives and to float the idea of bringing the iconic London cabs to his city. Gipsy cabs are commonplace in Kazakhstan, although taxi companies and ride-hailing apps have gained an increasing share of the market in recent years. In 2012, Magnesium Bronze’s London cabs became the only official taxi brand in Baku, Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
NOV. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev approved an agreement to develop military technology ties between Russia and Uzbekistan, an early indication that ties between the two countries are already improving less than two months after the death of former president Islam Karimov. Acting president Shavkat Mirziyoyev has made improving Uzbekistan’s international relations a priority. Russian president Vladimir Putin was one of the first foreign leaders to visit Uzbekistan after the death of Karimov in September.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
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)
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)
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)
NOV. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia plans to cut its consumption of gas, electricity and coal by 38% and boost its electricity generation from renewable sources, deputy energy minister Hayk Harutyunyan told local media. The ambitious plan appears to be another attempt by cash-strapped countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus to cut expensive energy consumption. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have both announced plans to cut back on electricity-generation plans. Kyrgyzstan has also hinted it wants to use more green energy.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
NOV. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s state-owned telecoms operator UMS said it has expanded coverage of its 3G network to the provinces of Ferghana and Namangan. UMS installed 56 new base stations that will boost coverage both in the cities and in the rural areas. Central Asian countries have invested heavily in improving mobile connectivity across their territory.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
NOV. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The IMF downgraded Georgia’s economic growth to 2.7% this year, from an earlier estimate of 3.4%. The downgrade was due, it said to a slightly bigger than expected drop in remittances and exports. It also downgraded growth in 2017 to 4% from 5.2%. Like the rest of the region, a recession in Russia and falling currency values have hit Georgia’s economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
NOV. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov ordered his government to modernise the country’s oil refineries so that it could boost its output of refined oil to 20m tonnes by 2020, 22m tonnes by 2022 and 25m tonnes by 2025, media reported. The Central Asia region in general has been suffering from a shortage of refinery capacity.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)