OCT. 31 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Talking to Reuters, Ian Atkinson, CEO of Toronto-listed mining company Centerra Gold, said shareholders would reject a demand from the Kyrgyz government that they reduce their stake in the Kumtor gold mine to 33%. A tentative 50-50 deal had been agreed but Kyrgyzstan wants a bigger stake in the country’s main economic asset.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
NOV. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tethys Petroleum, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, sold half of its Kazakh assets to China’s SinoHan Oil for $75m. China has been rapidly buying up energy assets in Kazakhstan. SinoHan Oil is a fully-owned subsidiary of HanHong. Tethys has operations across Central Asia and in Georgia..
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
NOV. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will harvest up to 19m tonnes of grain this year, a 50% rise from 2012, media quoted deputy agriculture minister Muslim Umiryaev as saying. Over the past decade Kazakhstan has turned itself into a major grain exporter. It has become an important part of the economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
OCT. 31 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — At a conference in London, Kazakh officials were eager to talk about plans to turn Kazakhstan into a centre for Islamic finance.
Islamic finance is the term used to define investments made, basically, with Islamic principles in mind. It’s a fluid concept but one that has picked up advocates in the Muslim world over the past few years. Kazakhstan though, has been a bit slow off the mark.
Although nominally a secular country, most people in Kazakhstan are Muslim and it has a fairly developed banking sector in Almaty.
Last year, the Kazakhstan Development Bank issued a $75.5m Islamic bond in Malaysia, which has become something of a centre for Islamic finance.
That, though, appears to have been just the start.
Now Asset Issekeshev, the Kazakh minister for new technology, has said Kazakhstan wants to join the International Islamic Financial Market (IIFM), a global watchdog for Islamic finance.
Yerlan Baidaulet, a Kazakh board member at Jeddah-based bank Islamic Development Bank (IDB), went further though. He said now that Kazakhstan had a new head of its Central Bank, Islamic finance would really take off.
Mr Baidaulet told Reuters at the conference that IDB was introducing an Islamic bank and a leasing company in Kazakhstan next year.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
NOV. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The volume of cashless transactions in Kazakhstan increased by 25% in the year to the end of September, the Kazakh Central Bank said. This shows that Kazakh consumers are becoming more sophisticated and comfortable with using debit and credit cards. Cashless transactions account for roughly 15% of all purchases.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
NOV. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — US car maker GM will add production of the Chevrolet Gentra to its plant in Uzbekistan later this year, media reported. The plant is a major component of Uzbekistan’s car industry. Media also quoted a senior official at Uzavtosanoat, the state-linked car production company, saying the industry was now worth $3b a year.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
NOV. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Despite assurances to the contrary, media groups continued to publish reports which said there was a shortage of fuel in Uzbekistan. US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that the worst shortages were in the eastern Ferghana Valley.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
NOV. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Figures from Azerbaijan Railway’s showed how dependent the network is on cash earned from freight transport. Azerbaijan Railways earned 168.5m manat ($215m) in the first nine months of 2013, media quoted the company’s chairman, Arif Asgarov, as saying. Freight transport generated just over 93% of the total.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
OCT. 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — It’s been another turbulent week for the consortium of partners developing the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea.
This is the field that finally produced its first oil in September after a 13-year, $50b construction phase. It is Kazakhstan’s most high profile industrial project and also carries the nation’s hopes of securing a place as one of the world’s top oil exporters.
The pressure is on, then.
It hasn’t been a smooth route towards commercial oil production at Kashagan, though.
First a gas leak temporarily halted oil production in September. This was fixed but another gas leak halted production a few days later. After initially brushing off this gas leak and saying that it wouldn’t derail the production timetable, officials at the North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC), that’s the name of the company running the site, have changed their mind.
Kashagan will now close for a few weeks until the leak is repaired, media quoted an NCOC statement as saying, meaning that a commercial production target of 75,000 barrels of oil a day will not be hit this month.
A few days later media also reported that AgipKCO’s managing director, Umberto Carrara, had decided to retire after seven years in the job. AgipKCO was the company formed to build Kashagan. NCOC said Mr Carrara’s departure was unconnected to the delays at Kashagan.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Islam Karimov said Uzbekistan had picked 3.35m tonnes of raw cotton this year, media reported. This is the same amount of cotton gathered in last year’s harvest. Uzbekistan’s cotton industry has attracted increased scrutiny over the past few years for allegedly using child labour.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)