Tag Archives: business

Azerbaijan BTC throughput falls

APRIL 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company Socar said that the amount of oil pumped through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC) had fallen by more than 11% in the first three months of the year, media reported. The fall is linked to a drop in oil being produced by fields in the region, a drop triggered by the collapse in oil prices from $110/barrel in mid-2014 to under $30/barrel in Jan. 2016 and around $50/barrel now. Azearbaijan has exported less oil via BTC and Kazakh producers have turned to the cheaper CPC pipeline that runs around the Caspian Sea to Novorossiya on Russia’s Black Sea coast.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)f

Gazprom pays knockdown price for Uzbek gas

Leave a Reply

APRIL 12 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian media reported that Gazprom will pay only $125/1,000 cubic metres of gas from Uzbekistan, a relatively low amount. The supply deal between Uzbekistan and Gazprom had been struck at the beginning of April when Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev visited Moscow and was hailed as a groundbreaking agreement. Analysts, though, have said that a price of $125/1,000 cubic metres is low and represents only $2.5b/year for the five year contract.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)

Markets: Central Asia Metals

Leave a Reply

APRIL 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Central Asia Metals, which is focused on Kazakhstan, posted turnover up 3% at $69.3m for 2016, helping to push up its share price to a five-week high of 242p by April 10.

This has since come off slightly but Central Asia Metals is still threatening to push past an all-time high of 246p set in mid-February. That’s certainly what analysts think. Most of them reiterated a ‘buy’ rating with Peel Hunt targeting 255p and FinnCap targeting 264p.

One of the main attractions for shareholders is the strong dividend that Central Asia Metals pays out. The Motley Fool, a stock analysis blog, explained.

“Shareholders will reap the benefit of this strong performance.

As much as 31% of last year’s revenue will be returned to shareholders by way of a total dividend of 15.5p. This gives a yield of 6.7% at the current share price of 229p,” the Motley Fool wrote before the share price started rising.

“This isn’t a one-off performance. The company’s dividend policy is to return at least 20% of revenue from Kounrad to shareholders each year.”

Kounrad is Central Asia Metal’s low-cost copper producing site in Balkhash, central Kazakhstan.

To underline the Motley Fool’s point, take a look at previous dividends. In 2015 and 2014, Central Asia Metals paid out 12.5p, in 2013 9p and in 2012 10.7p.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)f

Food prices rise in Turkmenistan

Leave a Reply

MARCH 31 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Turkmen government has ordered shopkeepers to raise their prices by 20%, as a kind of unofficial tax to help the state pay for the Asian Indoor and Martial Art Games which it is hosting later this year, the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website reported. It quoted an opposition website and also ordinary people from Ashgabat as saying prices had risen by between 20% and 50% this year on various foodstuffs.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Trail route from Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey to open in June

Leave a Reply

MARCH 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars rail route, considered a vital piece of infrastructure linking the Caspian Sea to Europe, will officially opened in June, media reported by quoting Turkey’s minister of transport, Ahmet Arslan. The route has been severely delayed. It is primarily designed for goods transport but will also carry passenger sleeper trains.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Azerbaijani president approves tourism plan

Leave a Reply

MARCH 31 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev approved an action plan that is designed to boost beach tourism in the country, media reported. The plan will run to 2020 and is designed to improve infrastructure for tourists wanting beach holidays along Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea coast. A sharp fall in the price of oil has forced Azerbaijan to try to diversify its revenue streams.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Hungary’s Wizz Air to fly budget flights to Kazakhstan

Leave a Reply

ALMATY, APRIL 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air said it would open a route from Budapest to Astana, making it the first European budget airline to fly to Kazakhstan.

The first flight will take off from Budapest on June 8, the Wizz Air website said, and the starting price of a one-way ticket will be 40 euros.

The accouchement of the new route, which has been the subject of negotiations since last year, was greeted with excitement by young Kazakhs who want easier access to Europe.

“I think it is a very good news because due to our geographical location it is not that easy to reach Europe and tickets are quite expensive, especially after devaluation (of the tenge in 2015),” said Sabina Serikova, 29, communication specialist. “And now, I think, every working person and even student can afford to go to Europe.”

In a statement, Wizz Air said it would fly twice a week to Astana. It also referenced Astana’s EXPO-2017 exhibition, also opening in June, as a reason to visit the Kazakh capital.

“Connecting the capitals of Hungary and Kazakhstan, we expect this service to significantly contribute to the development of economic and business relations between the two countries and we also believe that our low fares will attract a large number of visitors to both cities stimulating tourism and hospitality industries,” the statement quoted Wizz Air CEO Jozsef Varadi.

Wizz Air, which sees itself as a pan-Central Europe airline, is fast establishing itself as the European airline that best serves the region. It already flies to Kutaisi and Baku.

By comparison, British Airways has cut all its routes to the region over the past few years although other European airlines, Lufthansa and KLM, have retained theirs.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Kazakhstan-focused oil producer posts 47% revenue fall

Leave a Reply

APRIL 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tethys, the embattled London- listed oil producer with interests in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Georgia, said that its revenues from oil and gas sales had fallen by 47% in 2016 to $11.7m. It said that the drop was due to a fall in production and a devaluation of the tenge in the second half of 2015. Tethys sells most of its oil in Kazakhstan’s domestic market.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

First shipment from Kazakhstan arrives in Baku

Leave a Reply

MARCH 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The first shipment of goods from Kazakhstan’s new Kuryk port on the Caspian Sea reached Baku on March 24, a specialist shipping website reported. The port was commissioned in 2014 when the Kazakh economy was looking stronger than it is now. Kuryk is significantly closer to Baku than Aktau, Kazakhstan’s main Caspian Sea port. The freight ship took 18 hours to reach Baku, rather than the normal 22 hours.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Turkmen president opens potash plant

MARCH 30 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov officially opened a $1b Belarussian-built potash plant which he hopes will help transform the country’s economy away from near total dependence on gas exports.

Commissioned in 2010 and delayed by a couple of years, the Garlyk potash plant has been held up as a shining example of a strong Belarus-Turkmenistan partnership. The plant was built by Belarussia’s Belgorkhimprom.

For Belarussia, and Belarussian president Alexander Lukashenko was also at the officially opening of the plant, construction of the factory was a chance to show off its expertise and know-how. For Turkmenistan, it signalled a great push by Mr Berdymukhamedov to try to capture a slice of the lucrative fertiliser market in China and India.

At a series of meetings before and after the opening of the potash plant, Mr Berdymukhamedov and Mr Lukashenko reaffirmed trade and partnership commitments towards one another.

Mr Lukashenko also said that there had been talk of Belarus helping Turkmenistan develop its textile industries. Belarus is heavily industrialised but also retains a significant agricultural base, including one of the world’s biggest fertiliser producers.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)