DEC. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko flew into Ashgabat for talks with Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berymukhamedov on how to develop bilateral relations next year. Belarusian companies are involved in mining and fertiliser production in Turkmenistan. Mr Lukashenko was returning from Vietnam.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan once again formally complained to the OSCE, Europe’s security and democracy watchdog, about plans by Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to build new dams on the upstream river system
The complaint is a reminder of Uzbekistan’s opposition to hydro- power development in Central Asia’s upstream water system.
The Tajik and Kyrgyz governments see building new dams and hydro- power systems as essential for their countries’ development, and specific to meeting new power demands from Pakistan who they will serve through the CASA-1000 project. Uzbekistan sees the hydro- power systems as a threat to its cotton industry and agriculture.
CASA-1000 is the $1b World Bank- backed project for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to generate electricity to export to Pakistan, via Afghanistan. This project hinges on a series of new dams being built in Tajikistan, including the Rogun Dam on the Vakhsh River, part of the wider Amu Darya system.
Relations between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have become so strained in the past over the issue that at times it has threatened to destabilise the region.
With the final deal on CASA-1000 signed in Istanbul earlier this month, relations between Uzbekistan and its upstream neighbours are likely to become more strained, as this latest complaint appears to forewarn.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s telecommunications ministry said it wanted to spend nearly $900m over the next five years improving broadband access across the country. Internet penetration in Uzbekistan is still low.
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(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
NOV. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Union confirmed that it was preparing to give Georgia a grant of 100m euro to help improve parts of its society and business climate. Most of the grant is directed to Georgia’s agriculture sector but public bodies and utilities will also receive a chunk of the grant.
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(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
DEC. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil completed its retreat from the South Caucasus gas industry with its sale of a 20% stake in the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), part of a pipeline network that will pump gas from Azerbaijan to Europe.
Italian pipeline company Snam bought Statoil’s TAP stake for €208m ($227m), increasing Italy’s commitment in the Southern Gas Corridor, running from Azerbaijan, through Turkey and Greece, to Italy.
Over the past two years, Statoil has quit Azerbaijan,’s gas sector selling its 25% stake in the giant Shah Deniz field and its 15.5% stake in the South Caucasus Pipeline, which transports gas from Shah Deniz to Georgia and Turkey.
Statoil hailed its sale of its stake in TAP as generating value for share- holders but the final price of €208m is lower than the €400m that industry analysts had forecasted over the summer.
Statoil still owns an 8.56% stake in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field and a 8.71% share in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
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(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
DEC. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — South Africa’s Paramount, a private company that manufactures equipment for the police and military, opened a new plant in Astana to produce a version of their Marauder armoured personnel carrier. Kazakhstan Paramount Engineering is a joint venture with state-owned Kazakhstan Engineering Distribution. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev attended the opening.
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(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
DEC. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – If Turkmenistan wants to realise its potential and become one of the world’s top energy exporters it should improve its foreign investment climate, Reuters quoted Daniel Rosenblum, deputy assistant secretary for Central Asia at the U.S. Department of State, as saying on a trip to Ashgabat.
Western companies have found it difficult to enter the Turkmen energy sector despite an apparent abundance of hydrocarbon wealth. It is estimated that Turkmenistan holds the world’s four largest gas reserves.
Turkmenistan only offers Western companies service contracts on its various gas projects and not the production sharing agreements that many want. And this, Mr Rosenblum said, would hold back Turkmenistan’s development as a gas exporter.
“A critical element of success is to create the right mix of incentives,” he said according to the Reuters report.
Most of Turkmenistan’s gas flows to China through a network of pipelines that cross Central Asia but Turkmen officials have said they want to widen the client base. This includes pumping gas to Europe and India.
Turkmenistan will officially begin work on the TAPI pipeline that will, it hopes, eventually pump gas directly to consumers in India. Its an ambitious project and one that Western companies had previously expressed interest in.
The lack of a production sharing agreement, though, coupled with a poor record for corruption and the sheer ambition of building a 1,700km pipeline across unstable Afghanistan, with all its security concerns, has deterred potential suitors.
In a thinly veiled criticism of Turkmenistan, Mr Rosenblum told a conference: “Land-locked countries with potentially large resources, such as Turkmenistan, need to move expeditiously to capture market opportunities since their competitors are not idle.”
Although he wasn’t specific, Mr Rosenblum appeared to be saying that Western companies with their expertise and know-how would be able to help Turkmenistan speed up development of its hydro-carbon sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
DEC. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan and Uzbekistan plan to hold bilateral foreign ministry level talks in Dushanbe for the first time on Dec. 17/18, a step towards improving relations. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have been locked in a row over water. Tajikistan wants to build what would be one of the world’s largest hyrdopower dams. Uzbekistan has complained that the dam will reduce water flow to its fields of cotton.
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(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
DEC. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazmunaigas, Kazakhstan’s state-owned energy company, said it reached an agreement with international oil trader Vitol for the forward sale of crude oil for up to $3b, a deal that the debt-ridden Kazakh producer needs to maintain financial stability during a period of low oil prices.
Vitol will buy oil from Kazmunaigas’ share of oil produced at the Tengiz field in western Kazakhstan and then pumped by the CPC pipeline around the northern tip of the Caspian Sea to Novorossiysk in Russia.
Kazmunaigas, commonly known as KMG, will receive advance payments in the short term.
“It is expected that KMG will be able to draw the first tranche within 2-4 months,” the company said in a statement.
Neither company disclosed the amount of oil that will be traded and the duration of the contract, but a Bulletin calculation showed that the deal could range between 3 and 5 years, depending on how much of the 2-3m tonnes of oil KMG exports each year from Tengiz Vitol will buy and how big the discount is.
By committing to the sale of futures, Kazmunaigas earnsmuch needed cash in the short term to cover its outstanding debts. But there will be a reasonable discount which will manifest itself over the next few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
DEC. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh miner KAZ Minerals said it had produced its first copper from the Aktogay project in east Kazakhstan. KAZ Minerals,previously known as Kazakhmys, forecast that the Aktogay project will produce 15,000 tonnes of copper/year over the next decade.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)