MARCH 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state energy company, said it will ask the Central Bank for a 1b manat ($925m) loan to build an oil, gas and petrochemicals plant. This is important because last year SOCAR delayed construction of the $16.5b plant because its funds had dried up.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Jahangir Hajiyev, chairman of the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA), resigned for health reasons. IBA is the biggest bank in Azerbaijan and has close ties to the government. Emil Mustafayev, a deputy chairman, was appointed interim chairman.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s president launched construction of a new city to be built in a desert in the north of the country, media reported. The US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said the project is designed to generated jobs in the region and that the city would be home to 250,000 people.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia will build a hydropower station with a $250m loan from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) which will boost electricity production in winter and allow it to export power to neighbouring Turkey. Demand for power in Georgia is increasing.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Prosecutors in France have charged Jean-Francois Etienne des Rosaies, an ex-presidential adviser, with corruption over a 2010 deal to sell 295 trains and 45 helicopters to Kazakhstan, AFP reported. Media said he was the fourth person to be charged in connection with the deal.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – After announcing a 58% rise in net profit, Halyk Bank said it would increase its shareholder dividend to 30% of its total profit. This is an increase from 2014 when Halyk Bank paid out dividends worth 25% of its profit. Halyk Bank is one of Kazakhstan’s biggest and most profitable banks.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A gas pipeline that will run from Turkmenistan, across Afghanistan to Pakistan and India will cost $7.6b to build, India’s oil and gas ministry said. TAPI, as the pipeline is called, is one of the most ambitious pipeline projects in the world.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Giving a boost to the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline project (TANAP), BP said it was close to a deal to become one of its stakeholders.
In an interview with Reuters, Chris Schlueter, BP country manager in Georgia, said good progress on a deal had been made.
“We are very, very close,” he said. “I think (we will sign the deal) in the next two months.”
Shares in BP rose on the news.
TANAP is seen as a vital plank of the EU’s future energy policy, diversifying away from Russia. It will carry Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian Sea, across Georgia, Turkey and the Balkans to central Europe.
Analysts have said that they consider it vital that, alongside Turkish and Azerbaijani companies, BP is a major shareholder in the project.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – China has opened up negotiations on building a transport and logistics hub in north Kazakhstan, media reported. China would use the hub to send goods to Russia and to Europe. Kazakhstan has been promoting itself as a stage-post between Europe and Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan has signed a three year extension to a contract with Afghanistan to maintain the 75km railway from Hairstan, on the Uzbek-Afghan border, to Mazar-i-Sharif, media reported. Reports said the contract was worth $19m/year to Uzbekistan. This is a rare Uzbek service export.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)