JAN. 20 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it had loaned Tajikistan $120m to upgrade a 62km stretch of road connecting Dushanbe to the Uzbek border. The road is economically vital to Tajikistan, the ADB said, and forms part of a 7,000km road corridor running from Russia to the Persian Gulf.
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(News report from Issue No. 24, published on Jan. 24 2011)
JAN. 12 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan signed a deal to supply Iran with gas for the next five years. A spokesman for SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state oil company, said that from Feb. 1 it would export 1b cubic metres of gas to neighbouring Iran in 2011. Over the last year, Iran has been steadily improving relations with Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 23, published on Jan. 17 2011)
JAN. 13/5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso visited Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to try to persuade them to supply gas to Europe through planned routes running from the Caspian Sea across the South Caucasus. EU officials said Azerbaijan had committed to supplying gas and that Turkmenistan had pledged closer cooperation in 2011.
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(News report from Issue No. 23, published on Jan. 17 2011)
JAN. 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov sacked the head of the country’s gas company, Dovlet Mommayev, after only 3 months in the job, media reported quoting state TV. Amanali Khanaliyev, previously head of building pipelines, is the new head of Turkmengaz.
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(News report from Issue No. 23, published on Jan. 17 2011)
JAN. 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan gas production rose by 16.5% in 2010, deputy prime minister Baymurad Khojamukhamedov said on TV. Turkmenistan rarely releases data on gas production although last year it did say it wanted to boost production to 100b cubic metres, an increase of 30%.
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(News report from Issue No. 23, published on Jan. 17 2011)
JAN. 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran’s Interior Minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, said he wanted the country to establish itself as an energy transit corridor between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf, media reported. Mr Najjar made the comments during an official trip to Oman.
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(News report from Issue No. 22, published on Jan. 11 2011)
JAN. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, said he will visit Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan from Jan. 13 – Jan. 15 to persuade them to commit to the proposed Nabucco gas pipeline. The $11b Nabucco pipeline is key to Europe’s plan to reduce its reliance on Russia for energy.
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(News report from Issue No. 22, published on Jan. 11 2011)
JAN. 7 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Investment Bank, the European Union’s investment unit, agreed to lend Georgia €20m ($26.8m) to upgrade two hydroelectric plants, bringing to €175m ($234m) euro its loan portfolio to Georgia. The bank’s website said the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) would also lend €20m for the hydroelectric project.
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(News report from Issue No. 22, published on Jan. 11 2011)
DEC. 21 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – Construction started on an extension in west Kazakhstan of a gas pipeline that runs from Central Asia to China. When completed in 2015, the 1,475km pipeline will run from Beineu near the Caspian Sea to Shymkent on the border with Uzbekistan and link up with an existing pipeline to China.
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(News report from Issue No. 21, published on Jan. 4 2011)
DEC. 21 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan suspended the operations of a local subsidiary of Russian mobile operator MTS for one month. Media reported around 80% of Turkmenistan’s mobile phone users have a contract with Barash Communications Technologies Inc., the MTS subsidiary. The Turkmen government did not give a reason for the suspension.
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(News report from Issue No. 21, published on Jan. 4 2011)