OCT. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz officials flew to Turkmenistan to try to buy more electricity. Kyrgyzstan’s reservoirs are about 25% below capacity and its government has said that it is likely to face a power shortage. Kyrgyzstan has already negotiated to increase power imports from Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – By 2020 Kazakhstan aims to be producing 100m tonnes of oil a year, up from 82m tonnes currently, media quoted a senior official as saying. The jump in production is mainly attributed to Kashagan, the giant Caspian Sea oil field, finally starting production. It has been delayed by several years.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A report by the Open Society Foundations, funded by US billionaire George Soros, on Uzbekistan’s cotton industry concluded that most of the profits from the sector goes to hidden funds that only a handful of top officials can access. Western companies are boycotting Uzbek cotton because of its alleged use of child labour.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Goldman Sachs has said Azerbaijan is partly to blame for falling oil prices by oversupplying the market. West Texas Intermediate is trading at around $79.58 a barrel, its lowest for two years.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan is considering diversifying its energy transit routes because of Western sanctions imposed on Russia, media reported. One option being considered is the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline that runs from the Azerbaijani capital to Supsa on the Georgian Black Sea coast.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)
OCT. 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian energy minister Yervand Zakharyan flew to Tehran for another round of talks with his Iranian counterpart on increasing gas supplies. Marginalised by their neighbours, Armenia and Iran have been trading gas and electricity since 2009.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)
OCT. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Zaur Leshkasheli, a Russian oligarch, is suing investment bank Credit Suisse for not selling his 51 percent stake in the Kyurovdag oil field in Azerbaijan in 2008 for a high enough value, media reported. The court case should expose some of the murkier deal-making around the Caspian Sea.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)
OCT. 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A direct air route is opening up between Simferopol, the capital of Crimea, and Yerevan, making Armenia the only country other than Russia since the Kremlin annexed the Ukrainian region earlier this year to set up a connection.
Media reported that the airline, Grozny Avia would run the once-a-week flight from Simferopol from Nov. 16.
Perhaps this is the price that Armenia has to pay for Russian economic and military support. The West has levied sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea. Russia has said that Crimea voted to join Russia in an independence referendum and that its actions were legitimate.
And what it craves is international recognition. Russia has had the same problem with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, rebel Georgian states whose independence it has recognised to the chagrin of most the international community.
The only countries which have followed Russia’s lead are small countries from Central America to the Pacific Ocean looking for economic support.
Armenia may be falling into that category over Crimea. It will join the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union in 2015 and looks to Russian forces in Armenia to act as a counterbalance for any Azerbaijani aggression over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Grozny Avia likely to be linked to Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-supported leader of Chechnya, provides another link between Russia and its semi-vassal states.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)
OCT. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Chinese steelmaker Baoshan Iron & Steel Co ltd (Baosteel) said it had won a contract to supply pipes for the TANAP gas pipeline running to Turkey from Azerbaijan. The contract is significant because it means Chinese companies are competing for contracts along the South Caucasus energy transit route.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)
OCT. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – With the price of a barrel of oil falling to a four-year low, the Kazakh government has said it will review its national budget. Kazakhstan’s economy is propped up mainly by oil revenues. With oil revenues falling and with sanctions hitting Russia, Kazakhstan’s disposable income has shrunk.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)