JAN. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s economy grew at 3.5% in 2015 compared to 4% in 2014, the state statistics committee said. The statistics committee said that the main reason for the slowdown was an 8% drop in production at the Kumtor mine. Production slowed at Kumtor, which is owned by Toronto-listed Centerra Gold, when it enlarged the mine.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tsesnabank, one of the largest banks in Kazakhstan, bought an 83% stake in Russian Plus Bank, after both countries’ Central Banks gave the green light for the deal. According to Russian law, Tsesnabank will have to submit another offer for the remaining 16.7% of Plus Bank over the next days. UAE-based Linex Global owns 14.7% of Plus Bank. Tsesnabank has increased its stake over the past six months. In June 2015, it owned 20% of Plus Bank. It has since bought out several other minority shareholders. Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, mayor of Astana, owns Tsesnabank.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Turkmen authorities retrieved the body of another missing Azerbaijani oil worker in the Caspian Sea. A storm hit an oil field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea shortly before Christmas, triggering a fire that killed 33 people. It was the worst offshore oil rig accident since Piper Alpha, in the North Sea, in 1988. Some of the bodies have been found in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
DUSHANBE, JAN. 12 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik government said it was dissatisfied with the progress of the Bokhtar Operating Company, a joint venture between Tethys Petroleum, Total and CNPC which is exploring the country’s most promising oil field.
Murod Jumazoda, head of the government’s Geology Department, said the consortium was developing the site too slowly and that this could result in the government seizing 25% of the licensed area.
“They [the companies forming the joint venture] will have to return 25% of the oil and gas exploration area to the government this year,” Mr Jumazoda said at a press conference.
According to Tajik law, the government has the right to take back up to 25% of a licensed oil and gas area that has failed to produce within seven years of the license being granted. But Tethys, which is listed on the London stock exchange, disagreed with the government’s interpretation of the law.
“The first relinquishment is not due until 2020,” a PR agency speaking on behalf of Tethys told The Conway Bulletin.
This may become controversial as it was in 2008 that the Tajik government awarded Tethys an exploration licence to explore a 36,000 square km area around 100km south of Dushanbe for oil and gas.
But, and this is probably what Tethys’ PR agency was alluding to, the present composition of the Bokhtar Operating Company, owned by Tethys Petroleum, CNPC and Total, was finalised in 2013.
According to Tethys’ calculations, the field holds around 27.5b barrels of oil equivalent of recoverable resources. For Tajikistan, which is resource poor, this is a tantalising prospect.
Tethys is the lead operator of the Bokhtar Operating Company.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Czech engineering company Armatury Group delivered valves worth €3m ($3.3m) to Eriell, a service company operating in Uzbekistan’s oil fields, according to the group’s press release. Eriell, a Russian drilling company, is a supplier to another Russian company, Lukoil, which operates several oil and gas projects in Uzbekistan. The valves will be installed at a compressor station in the South Kemachi oil and gas condensate field, near Uzbekistan’s border with Turkmenistan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swedish telecoms company TeliaSonera effectively slashed the value of its assets in Uzbekistan by 5.3b Swedish kronor ($622m) to speed up a fire sale of its unit which it considers toxic after it was heavily implicated in a major corruption scandal.
Since last September, TeliaSonera has sought to sell off its businesses in Central Asia and the South Caucasus so that it can concentrate on its core mobile and data services in Europe.
TeliaSonera is under investigation in the Netherlands, Sweden and the US over its acquisition of mobile licenses in Uzbekistan in 2007. Prosecutors say the deal involved paying large bribes to the Uzbek president’s eldest daughter, Gulnara Karimova. Rival Norwegian telecoms company Telenor has also been accused of bribing Uzbek officials.
The cut in value of Teliasonera’s Uzbek assets, which will be booked on its Q4 2015 operations, is part of a 7.2b Swedish kronor ($845m) cut in the company’s global assets.
“We are well on track shaping the new TeliaSonera and the process to reduce our presence in Eurasia continues,” Teliasonera CEO, Johan Dennelind, said in a statement.
“As a consequence of this progress and current status in the overall divestment process, Region Eurasia will be reported as discontinued operations. When doing this we are obliged to change valuation method for these operations. This has resulted in an impairment charge relating to our operations in Uzbekistan.”
In its forthcoming 2015 annual report, due later this month, TeliaSonera will block out results from the Eurasia region and tag it “held for sale”.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Association the Kazakh Auto- mobile Business said authorised dealers in the country sold cars worth $1.9b in Jan.-Nov. 2015, about 43% less than than the same period last year. The Association also said that sales of cars produced in Kazakhstan fell by 50% to around $355m.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — UK-based Alpha Pharm Trading and Uzbekistan’s Fayz Farm signed a deal to create a joint venture to produce medicines in the Navoi free industrial economic zone. The joint venture, called Novo Farm Komplekt, will invest $3.7m in a factory and distribution centre for pharmaceutical products.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
BISHKEK, JAN. 13 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with local media, senior Kyrgyz government officials said they had pushed hard against the issue of an extra 4.6m shares in Centerra Gold, the Canadian mining company in which Kyrgyzstan owns a 32.7% stake.
Centerra Gold owns the Kumtor gold mine, Kyrgyzstan’s most important economic asset. The interview with local media again shows how far apart Kyrgyzstan and Centerra Gold are on their various strategies.
Kylychbek Shakirov, a government-appointed board member at Centerra Gold, told media that he and his two Kyrgyz colleagues voted against issuing the shares, as this measure would dilute the total stake that Kyrgyzstan owns in the company.
“The Board of Directors of the company at the extraordinary session on December 17, 2015, made the decision to issue 4.6m additional shares,” Mr Shakirov said.
“We failed to achieve cancellation of the previous decision because three members of the board voted against issuance of new stocks and 8 members voted for it.”
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian company Bloc Invest and Partnership Fund, a government operated business fund, will jointly build a three-star Radisson hotel in central Tbilisi. The construction of the $25m hotel will begin in the summer of 2016 and is planned to be completed in 2017. The new hotel will be built in the place of the Hotel Tori, a four-star hotel in the centre of the city. Major hotel chains have been piling into Tbilisi in the last few years.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)