AUG. 20/21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – China’s state-linked Sinopec agreed to buy the half of Kazakhstan-based Caspian Investments Resources (CIR) for $1.09b that it didn’t already own from Russia’s Lukoil, media reported. The price is lower than the $1.2b initially struck in 2014 and reflects the lower oil price. CIR used to be called Nelson Resources.
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(News report from Issue No. 245, published on Aug. 28 2015)
AUG. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Shares in Kazakh copper miner KAZ Minerals, formerly called Kazakhmys, rose by 20% on the London stock exchange immediately after Kazakhstan’s government said that it would allow its tenge currency to free-float. The announcement knocked 23% off the value of the tenge, giving exporters a much needed boost.
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(News report from Issue No. 244, published on Aug. 21 2015)
AUG. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Arsen Avetisian, majority shareholder in Air Armenia, said he was beaten up in central Yerevan after meeting with Ruben Hayrapetian, another wealthy Armenian businessman. Mr Avetisian declined to give media full details of his row. Air Armenia is Armenia’s largest private airline. It has not flown since last year when it was declared bankrupt.
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(News report from Issue No. 244, published on Aug. 21 2015)
AUG. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India have picked Turkmengaz, the Turkmen national gas company, to lead the construction of the so-called TAPI pipeline which, they hope, will pump gas from Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent.
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(News report from Issue No. 242, published on Aug. 7 2015)
AUG. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Data from Georgia’s ministry of economy showed that the number of people flying between Tbilisi and Moscow had risen by three-quarters to around 143,000 people in the first seven of 2015 compared to the same period in 2014. Russia and Georgia have resumed direct air links, severed after a brief war in 2008.
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(News report from Issue No. 242, published on August 7 2015)
AUG. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s government will use cash generated by the $180m sale of the Vorotan Hydro Cascade hydropower plant earlier this year to subsidise a 16% increase in power prices, media quoted PM Hovik Abrahamian as saying. The announcement appears to be a climbdown as the power price rise had sparked protests.
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(News report from Issue No. 242, published on August 7 2015)
JUNE 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh Central Bank bought a 10% stake in Kazmunaigas from the country’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk Kazyna for 750b tenge ($4b), a move analysts said was designed to help the state- owned energy company pay off debts generated by a sharp fall in oil prices.
This is the second reorganisation of Kazmunaigas since June. It earlier announced the sale of half its 16.8% stake in the Kashagan oil project to Samruk-Kazyna for $4.7b.
Analysts at Halyk Bank, a Kazakh bank, said the latest move shifted debt once again from Kazmunaigas to Samruk Kazyna to the Central Bank.
“If the first transaction raised the net debt of Samruk-Kazyna, the second lowered Samruk- Kazyna’s net debt, and the credit risk. By divesting of Kazmunaigas, Samruk-Kazyna reduced the most expensive part of its debt,” Halyk Finance senior analysts Sabit Khakimzhanov and Gulmariya Zhapakova said in a note to clients.
Delays at Kashagan and a sharp fall in oil prices have worsened Kazmunaigas’ financial affairs.
But, although unprecedented, the Central Bank’s purchase will change little in Kazakhstan’s oil sector. The two transactions may have helped Kazmunaigas achieve a better financial position in the short term, but both moves are temporary.
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(News report from Issue No. 242, published on Aug. 7 2015)
AUG. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – An explosion in Turkey on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars-Ezurum gas pipeline has raised worries that Kurdish fighters and other factions may target energy transport infrastructure carrying oil and gas from the Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea to Europe. Media reported an explosion on a remote section of the pipeline in east Turkey.
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(News report from Issue No. 242, published on August 7 2015)
JULY 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Statoil, the oil and gas company part owned by the Norwegian government, has decided to sell its 20% stake in the Trans- Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project that will pump gas from Azerbaijani fields in the Caspian to consumers in Europe.
Rovnag Abdullayev, the head of Azerbaijani oil and gas company SOCAR, announced the news on Azerbaijani TV.
“Statoil has decided to leave the TAP project completely, and there is a company which is ready to buy its stake,” ANS TV quoted him as saying.
“Several companies have expressed an interest in buying Statoil’s stake, and it would be better if several companies would buy it.”
Statoil declined to comment.
If confirmed, Statoil’s decision to quit TAP is probably more a reflection on how it is
re-adjusting its portfolio rather than on the project itself. Statoil has already said it wants to reduce its exposure to risk in its portfolio and has sold its stakes in the giant Shah Deniz field in the Caspian Sea as well as in the South Caucasus Pipeline.
Stakes in these projects were snapped up by SOCAR, BP and Malaysia’s Petronas and Statoil’s stake in TAP will attract bids from companies looking for a high-profile project.
TAP is an 870km pipeline project that should link up with the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline near the Turkey-Greece border which will then carry Azerbaijani gas onto central Europe.
The current TAP shareholders are BP (20%), SOCAR (20%), Statoil (20%), Belgium’s Fluxys (19%), Spain’s Enagas (16%) and Swiss company Axpo (5%).
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – BAKU — Harvey Nichols, the upmarket, blingy British retailer favoured by the world’s globe trotting metropolitan elite has closed its store in Baku only four months after opening.
A spokesperson for Harvey Nichols declined to comment but she did confirm the news.
“Harvey Nichols has terminated its licence agreement with the operator of the Baku store. Consequently, the Baku store no longer operates under the Harvey Nichols brand,” retail-week.com quoted a spokeswoman as saying.
A Bulletin correspondent in Baku confirmed that the Harvey Nichols signage had been removed from its shop in an upmarket shopping mall.
The closure will embarrass the authorities in Azerbaijan who have taken pride in attracting some of the top luxury brands to Baku and turning it into a regional shopping Mecca.
And it also shines another spotlight on Azerbaijan human rights and corruption records which have been attracting criticism.
Harvey Nichols opened its Baku store in March 2015, its eighth overseas outlet and the first in the former Soviet Union. It operated in Baku through a franchise arrangement.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)