DEC. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it would allocate a loan of up to $2.24b to co-finance transport and energy projects in Azerbaijan in 2016- 2017. Out of this loan, the ADB said it would allocate $500m to developing the electricity network and $40m for renewable energy.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Kyrgyzstan sentenced Dilger Zhaparov, former head of state-owned gold miner Kyrgyzaltyn, to three years in prison for corruption, after he made an unauthorised payment to Toronto-listed Centerra Gold.
Zhaparov has been in jail since May 2014, when he was arrested.
According to the prosecution, in December 2013 Zhaparov illegally withdrew funds from Kumtor Gold Company (KGC), a holding company operating the Kumtor gold mine, to pay a $200m dividend to Centerra Gold. The court in Bishkek agreed and gave him the maximum three year jail sentence.
During the trial there was never any suggestion of wrongdoing by Centerra Gold and John Pearson, vice-president of Investors Relations at Centerra Gold, said he was disappointed by the jail sentence as he thought the transaction was legal.
“We are puzzled by the decision of the Kyrgyz authorities. The payment was perfectly legal as it was an inter- company dividend payment between KGC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Centerra, and Centerra itself,” Mr Pearson told The Bulletin.
Kyrgyzaltyn owns 32.7% of Centerra Gold. Centerra Gold, in turn, owns 100% of KGC.
When Zhaparov was arrested, the authorities said the payment needed government approval.
The Kyrgyz authorities have repeatedly rowed with Centerra over KGC’s ownership. The Kumtor gold mine is Kyrgyzstan’s most valuable asset, making up 10% of its GDP.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a business forum in Beijing, Kazakh and Chinese officials said they reached agreements worth $10b that will increase cooperation between state-owned companies. One of the deals involved the sale of 51% of KMG International, a subsidiary of Kazmunaigas, to a Chinese energy company.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tengizchevroil (TCO), the Chevron- led consortium operating the Tengiz oilfield in western Kazakhstan, said it increased output in the first nine months of 2015 and that it intends to push ahead with its expansion project in the first half of next year. In January-September 2015, Tengizchevroil produced 20.3m tonnes of crude oil, up 2.5% compared to the same period last year when it produced 19.8m tonnes. The so-called Future Growth Project expansion project will cost around $38b to complete and will increase output by 44%. Earlier this year, TCO delayed its expansion plans because of the low price of oil.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Dozens of people queued up outside the MEGA shopping mall in Almaty to buy a coffee from Kazakhstan’s first Starbucks cafe. MEGA had previously said two Starbucks shops would open in 2016.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Iran ministry of energy said it may expand its activities in several international oil and gas fields, including Shah Deniz, Azerbaijan’s biggest gas project.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) cut funding for a railway project that would have linked Tajikistan and Turkmenistan via Afghanistan because of a deterio- ration in security.
The decision will be a blow to various infrastructure projects in Central Asia that involve Afghanistan, including the high profile TAPI gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India and the CASA-1000 power transmission route running from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Pakistan.
“Although Turkmenistan has completed construction of its section of the railway, we would not like to construct a railway where security is not guaranteed. It’s very risky,” ADB’s country director C.C.Yu told media.
This year, the Taliban has increased its attacks in northern Afghanistan, at one point capturing the town of Kunduz near Tajikistan. Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have all warned that security is worsening although, previously, infrastructure projects have not been postponed or delayed.
The railway route in question was supposed to run over 440km and bypass Uzbekistan, often considered a troublesome neighbour by Tajikistan in particular and Turkmenistan to a lesser extent.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – After visiting Ashgabat for talks with Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he would buy 200,000 tonnes of wheat from Turkmenistan for the 2015-16 season. The deal would make Turkmenistan one of the main exporters of wheat to Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an interview with local media, Samvel Karapetyan, the Moscow based billionaire who bought Armenia’s electricity distribution network earlier this year said that he thought the business could become profitable without massive states subsidies and, also, that he regarded himself as a long-term investor.
Mr Karapetyan had surprised people by buying ENA (Electrical Networks of Armenia) in September only a few weeks after thousands of protesters had demonstrated against proposed electricity prices rises. He bought ENA from Inter RAO UES, a Russian utilities company that wanted to exit the market.
“Electric Networks of Armenia is a good company and has been active for a long time and it will, now, become considerably better managed by us,” he said.
He scorned the suggestion that he’d been placed under pressure to buy the company or that he wanted to buy a major public company to help his brother, an MP, become PM.
Perhaps most importantly, Mr Karapetyan hinted that he wouldn’t be looking to raise prices for electricity soon.
“We aren’t thinking about margins yet. We will not be thinking about it for five years certainly.” he told the mediamax.am website.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swiss company ABB will provide the IT control infrastructure for the TANAP pipeline which will pump 16b cubic metres of gas from Azerbaijan to Turkey and link up with the Europe-bound gas grid (Dec. 15). ABB has already worked on telecoms systems for pipelines, notably with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. The company did not disclose the value of the contract. TANAP is considered vital to boosting European deliveries of Azerbaijani gas.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)