MARCH 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Canada-based Fraser Institute has ranked Kyrgyzstan as the worst place to do business for mining companies in its annual report, media reported. Their assessment highlights the problems that Western gold mining companies have had in protecting their assets in Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Petrovietnam, Vietnam’s state-owned energy company, has agreed to buy 3.5m barrels of Azeri crude oil this year, it said in a statement. The deal is a significant success for Azerbaijan which is looking to extend its client base and its international standing.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh state-owned pipeline monopoly KazTransGaz agreed to take a $700m loan from the China Development Bank to build a second 311km gas pipeline from southern Kazakhstan to China. The loan highlights the dominance of Chinese finance and its hunger for gas in Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan hopes that its long-delayed Caspian Sea oil field Kashagan will finally start producing oil in the second half of the year. Kazakh PM Serik Akhmetov said he hoped Kashagan, which cost $50b to build, would produce 3m tonnes of oil this year. A gas leak halted production last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Lawmakers in Tajikistan’s lower house discussed the draft of a new law that investors hope will help them to do business in its emerging energy sector.
Tajikistan, dependent on fuel imports from Russia and unfriendly neighbour Uzbekistan, is desperate to unlock its own significant hydrocarbons potential. It hopes to both achieve energy security and earn much-needed revenue.
The problem is that the legislation appears unreformed and Byzantine even.
Although details of the law under discussion haven’t been released, it is understood that it is aimed at addressing these problems.
Russia’s Gazprom, Channel Islands-registered Tethys, France’s Total and China’s CNPC are all prospecting in Tajikistan, the latter trio joining forces to exploit the Bokhtar license area in the south-west of the republic which may hold over 3 trillion cubic metres of gas.
Neighbouring China will be the primary customer when — or perhaps at this stage that should still be an ‘if’ — Bokhtar starts gas production.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmennebit, the Turkmen state-owned energy company, plans to increase exploration in the Caspian Sea after hitting oil in a handful of test wells, media reported. Over the past decade Turkmenistan has turned itself into a regional energy powerhouse.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — British bank HSBC agreed to sell its banking assets in Kazakhstan to Halyk Bank for $176m.
HSBC Kazakhstan employed about 600 people and operated six branches in the country.
The deal is important for two reasons. Although left unsaid, HSBC’s move out of Kazakhstan feels like a fairly damming verdict on the Kazakh economy. After all, HSBC spent 15 year working in Kazakhstan.
Perhaps Kazakhstan is not as rosy economically as government ministers would like the public to think.
Secondly, Halyk Bank, the purchaser of HSBC’s banking assets, is owned by the Dinara Nazarbayeva and Timur Kulibayev, the daughter and son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
HSBC has generally had a re-think across the globe on its banking strategy. It pulled out of Russia in 2011 after only two years.
For Halyk Bank, the deal is something of a coup. Halyk Bank refused to buy the government’s stake in debt-ridden BTA Bank at the end of 2013, showing its independent thinking.
For Kazakhstan’s banking sector, the deal marks another round in the consolidation process. It also leaves Citi as the only Western bank with a major presence. All eyes are now on Citi and how long it lasts.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Building an airline with a bold livery and a list of international destinations is a tried and test way of boosting national prestige for emerging countries.
Turkmenistan, is appears, is embracing this tactic.
According to a report on the centralasiaonline.com website, Turkmenistan is eager to boost the presence of Turkmenistan Airlines.
Turkmenistan Airlines now flies to 17 foreign cities. This should increase to 27 by the end of the year, centralasiaonline.com quoted a Turkmenistan Airlines official as saying.
It also plans to boost domestic air travel too. It has bought 20 planes with 100 passenger capacity each to use on domestic routes and ordered five more regional airports to be built.
As well as being a useful way to improve the awareness of your country and to promote a brand, Turkmenistan’s airline extension may have a positive impact on travel for both ordinary people and also for business and investors.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Workers in Tajikistan building a road for a Chinese company have gone on strike after demanding higher wages, media reported. Looking to build influence in Central Asia, China has pledged to construct a series of roads and tunnels. Tension, though, flares with how Chinese companies treat their Tajik workers.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government said it would buy 10 planes from Canada’s Bombardier to set up a domestic airline called Air Kazakhstan. Air Kazakhstan was the name of the Kazakh national airline in the 1990s. It was phased out with the creation of Air Astana in 2001. Kazakhstan has been investing heavily in transport infrastructure.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)