JULY 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tengizchevroil (TCO), a Chevron- led consortium, approved a $36.8b expansion project for the Tengiz oil field in west Kazakhstan. The consortium said the expansion will boost production by 45% to around 39m tonnes/year by 2022. Tengiz is Kazakhstan’s most profitable oil field.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
ALMATY, JULY 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — After prevaricating for three years, Tengizchevroil (TCO), a Chevron-led consortium, approved the $36.8b expansion of the Tengiz oil field in west Kazakhstan.
Low oil prices had thrown the Tengiz expansion plans into doubt, so the decision will be a huge relief to the Kazakh government which has been looking for ways to stimulate output to beat slowing GDP growth.
The so-called Future Growth Project will boost production at TCO by 45% to 39m tonnes/year by 2022.
Government officials and company representatives lauded the deal, the largest private investment in the world’s oil industry for a decade.
“This decision made by major international companies re-affirms that the Republic of Kazakhstan is a country with favourable business climate where long-term investments can be made with confidence,” the Kazakh minister of energy Kanat Bozumbayev said in a press release.
Through its state-owned energy company Kazmunaigas, Kazakhstan owns 20% of TCO. The other shareholders are Chevron (50%), Exxon (25%) and Lukoil’s subsidiary LukArco (5%).
The development of the Tengiz oil field near Atyrau has been one of the West’s success stories in the former Soviet Union. It is Kazakhstan’s largest oil producer, pumping out a third of its total output, and exports via the CPC pipeline that sweeps through Russia, north of the Caspian Sea to Novorossiysk on the Black Sea.
This compares to the Kashagan oil project in the Caspian Sea which is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.
Analysts said that TCO had decided that oil prices were steadily moving back up and that low steel prices and cheap labour made the timing right for expansion.
The consortium said the expansion will generate as many as 20,000 jobs during the peak construction phase.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The British government gave the Serious Frauds Office extra funding to complete its ongoing corruption investigation into ENRC, a Kazakh miner that quit the London Stock Exchange in 2013. The company is accused of having paid bribes to win contracts in Kazakhstan and Africa. Three prominent Kazakhstan-based businessmen, Alexander Mashkevich, Alijan Ibragimov and Patokh Chodiev, founded ENRC, now called Eurasian Resources Group.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Residents of Chuberi, a small village in Georgia’s north-western province of Svaneti, held rallies against the construction of the Nenskra hydropower plant, saying that it would negatively impact their livelihood. Activists said that the power plant will sit in a dangerously seismic region and its construction on the Svaneti river could trigger landslides. The Nenskra plant will cost $1b to build and will be the second largest hydropower plant in the country when it is completed in 2019.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Central Asia Metals, a Kazakhstan-focused copper producer, jumped 5% on Monday after it announced that its Q2 production had increased by 20%, boosting investor confidence. It closed at 156p/share on Thursday.
The company can now boast a 27% growth in production and a 24% increase in sales for H1 2016, compared to the same period last year. Central Asia Metals is expanding its Kounrad project, a copper recovery plant, which should be expanded in H2 2016.
The past six months or so have been a rollercoaster for Central Asia Metals’ share price. It plunged to an 18-month low in January before rebounding back to above 160p/share in March. After a brief period of stability, though, the stock suffered the downward pressure of declining copper prices and spiraled down to around 145p/share.
Analysts said the nature of Central Asia Metals’ production makes it immune from copper price volatility, but, as shown in the graph, both the stock and the commodity have gained 10% since the beginning of the year.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The EU’s European Investment Bank (EIB) said it plans to issue a €20m ($22m) loan to Azerbaijan’s AccessBank. Banks in Azerbaijan have suffered cash shortages this year, after the Central Bank abandoned the currency peg to the US dollar, slashing the value of the manat. AccessBank mainly funds small and medium enterprises. The EIB had issued a €25m ($27m) loan in 2014.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s Statistics Committee said that electricity production shrank by 1.9% in Jan.-May 2016 compared to the same period last year. Overall, the Metsamor nuclear power plant produced more than a third of Armenia’s 3.2b kWh output. Importantly, hydropower stations surpassed thermal power plants in their share of total electricity output for the first time.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – President Nursultan Nazarbayev said Kazakhstan is ready to supply gas to China, a move that would further improve the two countries’ energy ties. Mr Nazarbayev met with Wang Yilin, chairman of China’s state-owned energy company CNPC, in Astana. Mr Nazarbayev hailed CNPC’s role in boosting Kazakhstan’s energy sector with its multi-billion dollar investments over the past two decades. Kazakhstan currently hosts a gas pipeline that pumps Turkmen gas to China.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Noricum Gold, a London-based miner, said it has raised over £1.1m ($1.4m) to fund a new project at the DavidGaredji gold and copper mine. Noricum partners with Georgia’s Caucasian Mining Group at the Bolnisi copper/gold project in the south of Georgia. Discovered during the Soviet periods, the David Garedji underground basin is located near the Bolnisi project.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A row between BP and Exxon Mobil risks delaying an agreement between members of a consortium developing Azerbaijan’s largest oil field, Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG), sources told Reuters news agency.
Any delay in developing the field will be a major embarrassment for BP, the lead operator of the project, and a disappointment to Azerbaijan which is looking to boost oil production.
“BP and Azerbaijan agree to the new terms but Exxon keeps rejecting them time and time again,” Reuters reported quoting an anonymous source with knowledge of the sector and the companies.
“It has been going on for almost two years, with Exxon insisting on better terms.”
In May, the Azerbaijani government said it had submitted its proposal for a new contract to all consortium members. No details of the contract, or its sticking points, have been released.
ACG was dubbed the “contract of the century” when it was first signed in September 1994.
The consortium shareholders are BP (35.8%), Exxon (8%), SOCAR (11.6%), Chevron (11.3%), Japan’s INPEX (11%), Statoil (8.6%), Turkey’s TPAO (6.8%), Japan’s ITOCHU (4.3%) and India’s ONGC (2.7%).
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)