SEPT. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — After years of delay and billions of dollars of cost overruns, the consortium developing the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea celebrated its first oil. Kashagan is considered vital to Kazakhstan’s ambition to become a major global oil supplier.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s railway network modernisation plan is picking up speed.
Earlier this year, the World Bank said it would finance an upgrade to Azerbaijan’s rail network. Azerbaijani officials said an upgrade was vital to speed up the route, used to shift wagons full of goods from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea.
One of the areas that needed attention was signalling. Now, Azerbaijan’s government has said it has awarded a contract worth $288m to a consortium including Canada’s Bombardier. Bombardier will install new signalling equipment along the 503km track running from Baku to Boyuk Kesik on the Georgian border. This is roughly 17% of Azerbaijan’s total railway track.
Media also reported that French train maker Alstom, and other companies, are looking to win business in Azerbaijan off the back of the rail modernisation plan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Until July farmers from around the world had eyed up Georgia as good place to move to, buy a patch of land and start farming.
On July 17, though, President Mikheil Saakashvili signed a decree passed by parliament that places a moratorium on foreigners owning land.
Mr Saakashvili had, it has to be said, been against the decree but he was powerless to resist parliament which is now controlled by an opposition coalition led by PM Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Mr Ivanishvili’s government has proved their populist touch once more.
The previous government of Mr Saakashvili’s United National Movement had suspended a law banning foreigners from owning land unless they were part of a Georgia-registered business. They said that foreigners’ expertise was needed to boost productivity and efficiency.
They also actively encouraged some groups, such as Boer farmers from South Africa to migrate to Georgia. Other groups also arrived, such as Punjabi Indians.
This, though, triggered a backlash. Local people protested earlier in the year under the banner: “Georgian land for Georgians”. Once again politics and business in Georgia appear intimately entwined.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 14 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rounding off a tour of Central Asia, Chinese president Xi Jinping signed a deal with his Tajik counterpart, Emomali Rakhmon, to build a 400km gas pipeline crossing Tajikistan to China from Turkmenistan. The deal, announced on the side lines of a regional summit in Bishkek, is a major boost for Tajikistan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s government plans to build 23 small hydropower stations, the ministry of industry and energy said. As Azerbaijan’s economy grows so does pressure on its power grid. Currently, hydropower generates around 12% of Azerbaijan’s power, a percentage it has said it wants to increase.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Britain’s Rolls Royce has won a $175m contract to build compressor units to pump gas along a 1,115km pipeline from Kazakhstan to China, media reported quoting Beimbet Shayakhmetov, general director of the Asia Gas Pipeline. The pipeline is one of several being built in Central Asia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Overriding concerns from the EU, Armenia said it would extend the lifespan of its Metsamor nuclear power plant to 2026. The lifespan of the Soviet-era Metsamor, built 30km west of Yerevan in an area prone to earthquakes, had already been extended last year to 2020 from 2016. Metsamor provides 40% of Armenia’s power.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A steel plant owned by ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, in Kazakhstan has introduced a shorter working week because of a drop in demand for its products, local media quoted Reuters as reporting. ArcelorMittal’s plant at Temirtau, near Karaganda, has seen demand drop because of Western sanctions against Iran, a major client.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — When Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced the Kashagan oil field discovery in 2000 he described a future for Kazakhstan as one of the great oil producing nations.
Exploiting Kasahagan, he said, would mean Kazakhstan becoming one of the top five oil exporters in the world.
Now, after a decade of delays and a five-fold rise in the cost of the project to $50b because of complex technical problems and squabbling between the partners, Kashagan has finally delivered its first oil.
But that doesn’t mean Kazakhstan has now propelled itself into the Premier League of global oil exporters.
Kashagan may have estimated recoverable reserves of 13b barrels of oil and be touted as the largest oil find in 30 years but production, initially at least, will be modest before rising to 350,000 barrels per day.
This will rise to a mightier 1.5m barrels per day but it is still down on the 3m that was touted at first.
Even so, despite the problems, Kashagan will shape oil production in Kazakhstan for years.
The consortium developing Kashagan is made up of ENI, Shell, Total, ExxonMobil, Kazmunaigas (all owning 16.8% stakes), CNPC (8.4%) and Inpex (7.6%).
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s government has been talking up efforts to boost its non-oil sector, but energy exports have still accounted for 95% of the value of all its exports so far this year, media quoted Azerbaijan’s Central Bank as saying. Analysts have said Azerbaijan needs to diversify its economy.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)