DEC. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The state-owned Development Bank of Kazakhstan plans to inject $800m into the economy through loans to small and medium sized industrial projects, said Kuandyk Bishimbayev, CEO of NUH Bayterek, the state holding company that owns the bank. Mr Bishimbayev said lending to small businesses has drop by 25% in the past year.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
DEC. 30 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — ArcelorMittal will cut hundreds of jobs at its steel plant in Temirtau, central Kazakhstan as it attempts to stem loses from declining global demand.
A Conway Bulletin correspondent in Almaty said the local trade union had estimated that 2,500 jobs would be lost, roughly 17% of the workforce. Although the numbers were not confirmed by ArcelorMittal, the management did agree that jobs would be cut.
Temirtau is a classic monogorod, the Russian term given to cities that survive on one industry, and the job losses will deal a heavy blow economically and psychologically.
The Termirtau steel plant is one of the biggest non-energy projects in the country and also where Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev worked before moving into politics.
In a statement on the company’s website, Vijay Mahadevan, CEO of ArcelorMittal Temirtau, said orders for the company’s products had fallen by 12.5% in the last two years triggering the cuts.
General global demand for steel products remains weak and one of the factory’s key clients, Iran, has been suffering from heavy sanctions that have undermined its economy further.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
DEC. 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — ArmTab, the computer tablets produced in Armenia by an Armenian-US joint-venture, will go on sale in Yerevan priced $185, media reported. According to Armenia’s economy minister, Vahram Avanesian, 30,000 ArmTabs will be produced in the first year. The project is a major boost for Armenia’s technology industry.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
JAN. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-listed energy company Tethys Petroleum said it will quit Uzbekistan because of a change in its political and business environment. Last month, Uzbek authorities accused Tethys of stealing oil. Tethys operates throughout Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
DEC. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazkommertsbank, Kazakhstan’s biggest bank by assets, and businessman Kenes Rakishev agreed to buy a majority stake in the beleaguered BTA Bank. The deal is a relief for the government which has been looking to offload its 97.3% stake in BTA Bank.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
DEC. 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has continued to invest its energy revenues aboard, media reported. It quoted the Central Bank’s website as saying that in the first three quarters of 2013, Azerbaijan had spent $8.8b abroad. Over the past couple of years Azerbaijan has invested in overseas property and currencies as a long-term investment strategy.
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(News report from Issue No. 165, published on Dec. 18 2013)
DEC. 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A consortium of foreign energy companies led by BP officially signed a deal to develop the second phase of the Shah Deniz gas field in the Caspian Sea with the Azerbaijani government. The deal will trigger the start of a $45b project that should, from 2019, deliver 20% of the EU’s gas.
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(News report from Issue No. 165, published on Dec. 18 2013)
DEC. 15 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a surprise announcement, Statoil, the Norwegian state-owned energy company, said it was selling a 10% block of its 25.5% stake in the Shah Deniz gas project in the Caspian Sea.
Statoil and France’s Total have also pulled out of the consortium building the TANAP pipeline that will pump gas to Europe from the Caspian Sea to Europe after Turkey said it wanted to increase its stake in the project.
Neither moves are hardly a ringing endorsements of Azerbaijan or Caspian Sea energy.
Statoil will sell its 10% stake in the Shah-Deniz project for a total of $1.45b. Analysts said that the price was a good one for Statoil. BP will buy a 2.3% stake and SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s energy company, will buy a 6.7% stake.
Shah Deniz-2 will cost $45b and provide up to 20% of the EU’s gas needs from 2018. It was finalised on Dec. 17 in Baku. It will also turn Azerbaijan into a major global gas supplier and reduce its dependency on Russia as a conduit for its gas. More pipelines, including TANAP, are being built directly from the Caspian Sea to Europe.
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(News report from Issue No. 165, published on Dec. 18 2013)
DEC. 14 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swiss authorities dropped a money laundering case against Timur Kulibayev, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s son-in-law and a potential successor, and his close business associate Arvind Tiku without pressing charges, media reported. The Swiss authorities opened the case in 2010.
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(News report from Issue No. 165, published on Dec. 18 2013)
DEC. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s parliament agreed to sell the debt-ridden Kyrgyzgaz to Russian gas monopoly Gazprom for a symbolic $1. The deal increases the Kremlin’s leverage over Kyrgyzstan. Gazprom has pledged to spend about $610m modernising Kyrgyzgaz and has guaranteed gas supplies to Kyrgyzstan for a year.
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(News report from Issue No. 165, published on Dec. 18 2013)