Tag Archives: business

An energy route between the Caspian Sea and Europe

JUNE 26 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a ceremony in Istanbul, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan signed a deal to finally complete a gas pipeline route from the Caspian Sea to western Turkey.

The $7b deal paves the way for the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline (dubbed TANAP) to be built across Turkey, bringing gas ever closer to Europe.

For years the EU has been trying to put together a plan for a new energy route through the South Caucasus and on to central Europe.

Its preferred option had been to build a new gas pipeline called Nabucco from eastern Turkey straight to central Europe. This though has proved complicated and momentum has slowed.

That’s why TANAP is important. It will provide the link and should be built within six years. The plan is for TANAP to carry 16bcm (billion cubic metres) of gas a year, half the capacity that Nabucco ambitiously aimed for. Still, of that 16 bcm, 6bcm is designated to Turkey and 10bcm to Europe through a proposed branch pipeline, media reported.

And TANAP — Azerbaijan owns an 80% stake, Turkey 20% — has said that capacity can be boosted. By delivering gas to western Turkey, TANAP will also secure gas for Europe.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 094, published on June 29 2012)

Uzbek authorities warn Russian telecoms

JUNE 25 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Uzbek authorities warned Russian mobile telecoms provider MTS it may revoke its licence. They said MTS, which has around 9.5m subscribers in Uzbekistan, was providing deteriorating quality and illegally using base stations. Foreign businesses have previously accused the Uzbek government of taking over successful companies.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 094, published on June 29 2012)

Kazakhstan to allow Russia using the Baikonur site

JUNE 15 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh PM Karim Massimov said that Russia would be allowed to continue using the Baikonur launch site in the south of the country to send rockets into space. Kazakhstan had suspended launches from Baikonur because of a row over debris from space rockets littering areas in northern Kazakhstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 093, published on June 22 2012)

Georgia makes gold mine deal

JUNE 19 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Capital Group Company, owned by Russians Dmitri Korzhev and Dmirtri Troitsky, has bought a copper ore and gold mine in Georgia from GeoProMining for $120m, media reported. Capital Group Company already owns a mine in Armenia. Despite political animosity, Georgia and Russia have close business links.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 093, published on June 22 2012)

Kyrgyzstan announces gold tender

JUNE 19 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan has announced it will tender mining rights to 93 gold deposits on Aug. 20/21, media reported. Mining, especially gold, is Kyrgyzstan’s main economic lifeline and the Kumtor mine, operated by Toronto-listed Centerra Gold, accounts for around a third of the country’s GDP.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 093, published on June 22 2012)

Ex-US envoy joins oil firm with links to Azerbaijani SOCAR

JUNE 7 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Matt Bryza, the US’s former special envoy to the South Caucasus, has joined Turcas, a Turkish oil firm with close links to Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR, media reported. Last year US Senators declined to sanction Mr Bryza’s appointment as permanent US ambassador to Azerbaijan over worries he was too close to the Azerbaijani authorities.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 091, published on June 8 2012)

UN urges Uzbekistan to allow ILO to monitor cotton harvest

MAY 29 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Human rights groups urged the Uzbek government to allow the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) to monitor its 2012 cotton harvest. Clothing companies have boycotted cotton from Uzbekistan because it uses child labour. The Uzbek authorities have refused the ILO access to monitor the harvest.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 090, published on June 1 2012)

Turkmen President sacks energy minister

MAY 28 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov sacked his energy minister, Bairamgeldy Nedirov, for “serious shortcomings”, media quoted the presidential office as saying. Mr Nedirov had served as energy minister since Aug. 2008. His dismissal on May 25 came two days after signing a gas deal with India and Pakistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 090, published on June 1 2012)

Georgian railway IPO drops

MAY 24 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s government delayed plans to list its national railway company on the London Stock Exchange because of poor market conditions. Concerns over the Eurozone and a disappointing stock market debut for Facebook have unnerved investors. Georgian PM Nika Gilauri said the government still planned to list the railway company when the market improves.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 089, published on May 25 2012)

Turkmenistan’s trans-Afghanistan pipeline dream

MAY 25 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The setting may have been relatively inauspicious but the ambition was clear to all.

At an oil and gas conference on the Turkmen Caspian Sea coast on May 23, Turkmenistan, Pakistan and India signed a gas supply deal that should mark the start of construction of a pipeline dubbed TAPI.

To deliver the gas to Pakistan and India, the plan is to build a 1,650km pipeline from Turkmenistan across war-ravaged Afghanistan — that’s the ‘A’ in TAPI.

Many commentators have said that it’s too ambitious and that it can’t be done, especially as security in Afghanistan may worsen further after NATO withdraws forces from 2014.

Still, the estimated $10b project may be too big to fail.

Pakistan and India are hungry for energy and, according to the plan, TAPI should become one of their biggest providers. At its peak TAPI should pump 33b cubic metres of gas a year, about three times the size of the EU’s proposed Nabucco pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Europe.

The project’s success is also vital to both Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. For Afghanistan, TAPI is a prestige project with a critical revenue stream. For Turkmenistan, it cements its position as one of the region’s most important energy suppliers.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 089, published on May 25 2012)