Tag Archives: construction

Turkmenistan opens new airport in Ashgabat shaped like a bird

SEPT. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov opened a new airport in Ashgabat, which included a bird- shaped passenger terminal, that cost $2.3b to build and is capable of serving 17m passengers a year.

The airport, which the World Record Academy has called the world’s largest bird-shaped building, spans 364m.

Mr Berdymukhamedov wants the airport to become a key hub for pas- senger and cargo transit between Europe and Asia.

“The opening of the new international airport in Ashgabat will contribute to the full integration of Turkmenistan in the system of international relations,” a Turkmen government website wrote.

To achieve these ambitious goals, the government will have to relax some of its visa rules. Last year, only 110,000 foreigners visited Turkmenistan, according to Turkmen data.

Grandiose buildings, however, also serve as photo-ops and symbols of Mr Berdymukhamedov’s attempts to mould Turkmenistan’s image onto his own.

The near empty over-sized resort town of Avaza on the Caspian Sea shore, an indoor Ferris wheel considered the largest in the world and the largest hand-woven carpet all tell a similar story to that of the newly- unveiled airport.

The Guinness World Records said in 2013 that Ashgabat was the city with the greatest density of marble- clad buildings.

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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)

Belorussian firm in Turkmenistan suspends wage payment

SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Belgorkhimprom, a Belarusian firm in charge of building the Garlyk mining and processing plant in eastern Turkmenistan, has not paid wages to its workers for three months, according to opposition website Alternative News of Turkmenistan. Belgorkhimprom has not commented. The Garlyk plant will mostly service state-owned Turkmenkali, which produces potash, a fertilizer. Economic hardships since the price of commodities collapsed in mid-2014 have delayed several industrial projects in Central Asia.

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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)

Samsung cancels Kazakh power plant deal

ALMATY, SEPT. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — South Korea’s Samsung pulled out of a $2.5b deal with Kazakhstan to build a coal-fired power plant on the shores of Lake Balkhash in the south of the country because of the low oil prices.

A collapse in oil prices since 2014 has hit Kazakhstan’s finances hard, forcing the government to cancel projects. Although there has been no response from the Kazakh government, the inference from Samsung’s statement is that it was worried that Kazakhstan would not be able to buy as much electricity as they had agreed.

“Samsung C&T exercised the put option regarding all of its Balkhash thermal power plant shares, 50% plus one share,” the company said in a statement. “[This] is a demand for Samruk Energy to acquire all the shares within 60 days from the date of notice for $192.5m.”

Samsung stopped construction work on the power plant 12 months ago after a disagreement with the Kazakh government over the agreed price it would pay for buying electricity from the plant, the first indicator that the deal may be running into serious trouble.

For Kazakhstan, Samsung’s decision to cancel the contract is a blow for two reasons — it is damaging for Kazakhstan’s reputation as a place to do business and also places further pressure on its current Soviet-era energy production system. Demand for electricity has been booming because of rising population and living standards. The Balkhash power plant had been considered essential for maintaining Kazakhstan’s power production.

In January, another South Korean company, LG Chem, dropped its plans to build a $4.2b petrochemical complex in Kazakhstan due to sustained low oil prices.

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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)

Tajikistan to open railway to the south

DUSHANBE, JULY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan has finished building a new railway connecting the capital city with the south, that avoids the headache of passing through Uzbekistan.

The Dushanbe- Kurgan Tyube-Kulob route effectively lifts its southern region out of economic isolation and removes Uzbekistan’s ability to close the route at will and use it as a bargaining tool. The Soviet Union had built Tajikistan’s railway through parts of Uzbekistan to avoid the more challenging Pamiri terrain.

Usmon Kalandarov, deputy director of the Tajik Railways company, said that the railway, which will be opened on Aug. 24, was built with the financial support of Chinese Eximbank.

“The construction of five bridges and three tunnels on this road has been financed by the Chinese bank Eximbank with a loan of 72m somoni ($9.2m),” he said at a press conference.

In 2011, in retaliation for plans to build a dam that would divert water away from its cotton crops, Uzbekistan cut the original railway line. Other than a dangerous and unreliable single road that weaved its way through the Pamir mountains, this effectively cut off the south of the country.

Sardor, a 52-years-old local trader, told The Conway Bulletin correspondent in Dushanbe that he has been waiting for the railway to be finished.

“I bring fruits and vegetables from southern towns to Dushanbe and vice-versa. It is inefficient for me to use trucks, they are expensive and take a long time,” Sardor said as he sold melons. “I think the new railway will be good for me because I will pay less to transport goods, which will not have to go through Uzbekistan and be in trouble like before.”

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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

China to build piplene between Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

JULY 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — China will go ahead with the construction of a fourth line of the Central Asia-China gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, officials said. Luo Wei Dong, a deputy at China’s ministry of commerce told the Kremlin- funded Sputnik news agency that the pipeline will be built in the near future and will increase the overall capacity by 54% to 85b cubic metres/year.

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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Azerbaijan’s Gilan Holding to construct Baku tower

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s construction company Gilan Holding picked Switzerland- based Liebherr as the provider of cranes for a skyscraper complex to be built in Baku. Gilan’s project for The Crescent Bay, will include a hotel, a shopping mall and a residential unit and is one of the biggest real estate projects currently planned in Azerbaijan.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Armenia’s power company to invest in rebuilding

JULY 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s power generation company Hydro Corporation said it will invest 8.9b drams ($4.2) to rebuild its small hydropower station on the Argichi river in the east of the country. The hydropower station was built in 2013 and financed through a loan from Germany’s development bank KfW.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Japanese-Turkish consortium completes chemical factory in Turkmenistan

JULY 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Japanese-Turkish consortium said it completed construction at a petrochemical plant in Turkmenistan’s north-eastern Lebap province. Japan’s Mitsui Engineering Shipbuilding, Sojitz Corporation and Turkey’s Renaissance Holding completed the plant, which will have an annual production capacity of 500,000 tonnes of sulphuric acid, used for fertilisers, detergents and synthetic fibres. Most of the plant’s production is earmarked for exports.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Briefing: Tajikistan’s Rogun dam project

JULY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — >>Right. Let’s get started. The Rogun Dam. What is it and what is it all about?

>>For Tajikistan and President Rakhmon, the Rogun dam project is vitally important. If it is ever built, and the plans have been knocking around since the Soviet era, the Rogun dam will be the tallest dam in the world at up to 335 m. It will also double Tajikistan’s power generation capacity. The problem is that the dam has proved highly controversial, domestically and internationally, and is also expensive to build.

>>Hang on. Slow down. This is a lot take on. So, Rogun is massive but why is it controversial?

>>It’s controversial because human rights group have accused the government of forcibly moving thousands of people away from the Vakhsh River valley, the area that will be dammed and flooded. The government has also imposed a Rogun dam tax on people to pay for the project. This has gone down badly with human rights groups. Externally, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan’s neighbour, hates the idea of the Rogun dam. It worries that the dam will divert water from irrigating its cotton fields.

>>How serious are Uzbekistan’s concerns?

>>Central Asia is a fragile region. If Uzbekistan is making threatening noises
towards Tajikistan, people need to take notice. Analysts and diplomats have spoken of water wars in Central Asia. I’m not saying that the Rogun dam is going to trigger a war but it is another pressure point that people need to watch.

>>Got it. So with all these obstacles and problems why is Tajikistan pushing for problems?

>>It’s become Rakhmon’s pet project. He probably has another five or ten years left in office and it really feels like he wants and needs the Rogun dam to be his legacy. It’s also become vitally important for Tajikistan’s electricity generation sector. Electricity is becoming an important export commodity for Tajikistan as it has signed up to be the main power generator for the so-called CASA-1000 project.

>>CASA-1000? What is that?

>>It’s the World Bank-backed project to build a power transmission network from Tajikistan to Pakistan. It will cost around $1.2b, cross Afghanistan and be operational, if it all goes to plan, by 2019. The challenge is both security and power generation.CurrentlyTajikistan, and to a lesser extent Kyrgyzstan, doesn’t have the capacity to generate enough power to meet its CASA- 1000 commitments. That’s where Rogun comes in.

>>And the financing? This seems to be an expensive project just when the region is trying to deal with a financial crisis. Where is the finance coming from?

>>Good question. We’re not entirely clear. We’ve only been told that it is a mix of government funds and private investment. Who the private investors are and what their motives are is unknown.

>>I see. So what next?

>>Well, the Tajik government awarded a $3.9b contract to Italian builder Salini Impregilo to start construction work on the dam. We’re still waiting for work to begin but Salini Impregilo has said it will kick off soon. This has been a stop-start project so actually seeing the diggers go in and the workers start to build the dam is important. If this does happen, it’ll dominate news headlines for years to come.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Tajikistan’s Rogun dam start surprises people

DUSHANBE, JULY 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The revival of the Rogun hydropower project, for which Tajikistan awarded a $3.9b tender last week, surprised both analysts and people living in Dushanbe.

Most had assumed that the project first dreamt up under the Soviet Union had been mothballed. There had been no major break- through on the project for the past few years and the middle of an economic downturn is no time to start a major infrastructure project.

Still, it appears Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon had other ideas. Now, Italy’s Salini Impregilo, the construction company that won the tender, says it will complete the dam, set to be the world’s tallest, and the first two power stations by 2018.

Manu, a 28-year-old student in Dushanbe, summed up many Dushanbe-residents’ thoughts when he said that he had believed that the dam would never be built.

“I thought we would not build Rogun any time soon,” he told the Bulletin’s Tajikistan correspondent. “It all happened unexpectedly but I am excited.”

If Rogun is successfully completed it will double Tajikistan’s power production and turn it into a major regional electricity exporter.

Analysts, though, were sceptical about the aggressive timeline that Salini Impregilo has set.

Filippo Menga, researcher at the University of Manchester who has studied Tajikistan’s hydropower, told the Bulletin that large dams are never built on time.

“There is still uncertainty on who is going to fund the Rogun dam, delays are clearly foreseeable. The timeline is simply not realistic,” he said.

The Rogun dam project is cer- tainly ambitious and will change Tajikistan’s fortunes if it is success- fully completed. It will also leave a lasting legacy for the 63-year-old Mr Rakhmon who, if reports are to be believed, is already thinking about his succession strategies.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)