MARCH 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bakhtiyar Krykpyshev replaced Eduard Ogai as chairman of Kazakh miner Kazakhmys Corporation. Kazakhmys Corporation is the privately-held offshoot of the now-defunct Kazakhmys and is controlled by Vladimir Kim. KAZ Minerals, the publicly-traded heir of Kazakhmys, is the other offshoot of the corporate reorganisation.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s state-owned gas firm Uztransgaz will invest $506m modernising its pipeline system. Uztransgaz will spend around $266m building a new section of the 10b cubic metres pipeline from the Ferghana valley to Tashkent which was damaged last year after an explosion. Uztransgaz also said it will modernise one of its compressor stations at the Central Asia-Centre export pipeline and build a new one for a total cost of $215m.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Canadian oil company Sixth Energy Ltd bought a 26.5% stake in Calgary- based Caspian Energy for $320,000. Sixth Energy now owns 60.6% of Caspian Energy, a company active in north-western Kazakhstan. Caspian Energy holds an exclusive licence to explore the North Block, near the Alibekmola, Zhanazhol and Kenkiyak oil fields.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – India’s oil ministry said in a statement that it will not sign a contract with Turkmenistan that fixes gas prices for supplies coming through the prospective TAPI pipeline. The Indian government said it will not repeat the unprofitable relationship it had with Qatar, which exported liquefied natural gas at a fixed prices. This became costly when oil prices collapsed in 2014 driving down spot prices for gas.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
ALMATY, MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Canadian gold miner Alhambra Resources said it was seeking damages against Kazakhstan’s government, via the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, for the bankruptcy of its Kazakh subsidiary.
This is the second major arbitration case against Kazakhstan in the past few months. In January, the Kazakh government had to pay $25m compensation to Estonian builder Windoor after a court in Stockholm ruled it had broken a contract in 2012 to build a conference centre for its foreign ministry.
A sharp economic downturn has hit Kazakhstan hard and forced the government to cut budgets and projects, undermining, to some extent, its credibility as a client.
The company accused the Kazakh government of acting in an “unfair and inequitable” way against both Alhambra and its subsidiary Saga Creek.
Alhambra said the Kazakh government had broken its terms of contract with Saga Creek, imposed excessive fines on it and withheld mining licences.
“This conduct by the Government has frustrated Alhambra’s investment activities in Kazakhstan, drained the Corporation’s resources and culminated in the bankruptcy of Saga Creek,” it said in a statement. Kazakhstan has not commented.
In 2011, a high court in the Akmola region of northwest Kazakhstan cancelled a $1.6m tax bill that local government had sent to Alhambra.
The new arbitration, the company said, had been initiated after a Kazakh court on March 3 upheld the a bankruptcy order imposed on Alhambra’s subsidiary in December.
Saga Creek and Alhambra own a 25-year licence to mine the Uzboy gold field in north Kazakhstan near the border with Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh energy company Olisol acquired control over additional shares of Guernsey-based Tethys Petroleum and is awaiting permission from the Toronto Stock Exchange to reach a 15.8% stake in the company. Under a facility agreement Olisol will also buy additional shares, bringing its ownership in Tethys to around 42%. Oilsol agreed a finance deal with Tethys earlier this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to boost the status of state- owned Tajik Air, Tajikistan’s deputy PM Azim Ibrohim said that the government had bought a number of planes from Europe’s Airbus. State-owned Tajik Air and privately-owned Somon Air are the only two airlines in the country and both use Boeing-made aircrafts. Countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus have been using airlines to promote their national brands.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish real estate developer Mehmet Surkit opened a new luxury boutique hotel in central Tbilisi. In a statement, Mr Surkit said the hotel had cost 12m lari ($5.3m). Hotel groups have been expanding rapidly in Tbilisi. The city is also promoting itself as a tourist and business destination.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Silk Way West Airlines, a private freight air carrier based in Azerbaijan, signed an agreement with Malaysia Airlines Cargo that will allow them to mutually use their aircraft fleet. Earlier in January, Silk Way West Airlines signed an agreement with the Komatsu airport in Japan to open a new route. The Silk Way Group, a large industrial conglomerate, owns Silk Way West Airlines.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s gas distributor Kaz- TransGas Aimak lost around 124b tenge ($365m) in 2015 selling gas on the domestic market because the government insisted that it keeps prices down. “Every year we incur losses because the wholesale price is kept below production and transport cost, but we make up for the losses in other departments, such as transit and exports,” the company’s CEO Ibulla Serdiyev said in a statement. KazTransGas Aimak is a subsidiary of state-owned Kazmunaigas.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)