Tag Archives: construction

Tajikistan hands out $3.9b contract to build Rogun dam

DUSHANBE, JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan handed a $3.9bn contract to Italy’s Salini Impregilo to build the Rogun dam and hydroelectric power plant, a controversial project that sits at the heart of the country’s future energy production.

Salini Impregilo, Italy’s biggest construction company, said it had already received funding of $1.95b for the construction of a dam on the Vakhsh river, which will become the tallest in the world at 355m. A company spokesman said that work would start soon.

“The idea is to have two of the six turbines start producing energy for sale by 2018 in order to raise funding to complete the project,” the company said in a press release.

The Rogun dam project is controversial because it is opposed by down- stream Uzbekistan which worries that the complex will divert water away from its cotton fields. Environmentalists have also complained about the damage the dam will cause to the region’s lush valleys and human rights activists have exposed the forced eviction of thousands of people from the area.

Still, for Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon, the Rogun dam has become one of his pet projects. In 2011, he received a major boost when the World Bank endorsed it in two feasibility projects.

Around 70% of Tajikistan’s energy production comes from hydroelectric power stations. Once Rogun comes online, Tajikistan could become a hub for the region. It already plans to export electricity to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Salini Impregilo has built 250 dams worldwide and in August 2015 it won a $575m contract to build the Nenskra hydropower plant in Georgia.

The company said it will build six power stations atRogun, with a total capacity of 3,600MW, roughly equivalent to Tajikistan’s current capacity.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Tajikistan hands out $3.9b contract to build Rogun

DUSHANBE, JULY 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan awarded a $3.9b contract to Italian construction company Salini Impregilo to build the controversial Rogun dam in the Pamir mountains.

The Soviet-era plan has been on hold for several years because of worries over its funding and opposition from Uzbekistan that it will siphon off water needed to irrigate its cotton fields.

The timing of the $3.9b deal for Salini Impregilo was unexpected and appears to suggest that the Rogun dam project is up and running once again.

Tajikistan needs the dam to boost electricity production. It suffers countless blackouts in winter, when there is less water generating hydropower, and has also committed itself to supplying both Pakistan and Afghanistan with power from 2018.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

WB approves Kazakhstan road loan

JUNE 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The World Bank approved a $978m loan to finance the construction of a road link across Kazakhstan, which will complete the transit corridor between Astana and the west of the country. The project will cost a total of $1b and will be partly funded by the government. The World Bank is also funding part of the Kazakh section of the Western Europe – Western China highway.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Technopark costs in Kazakhstan rise

JUNE 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government said it will have to recalculate costs for the construction of a petrochemical technopark in a Special Economic Zone near Atyrau, due to the depreciation of the local currency. Nurlan Rakhmetov, managing director at Samruk-Kazyna, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, said costs will rise. As of June 1, the local consortium building the technopark has received 40.7b tenge ($120m) from the state budget.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

Donald Trump in hot water over Azerbaijani deal

JUNE 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican party candidate for a presidential election later this year, has quietly ditched a real estate project in Azerbaijan that had been linked to an father-son combination allegedly connected to the Iranian military, the AP news agency reported.

Mr Trump had made the initial deal in Baku in 2013 with Anar Mammadov. His father Ziya Mammadov is a government minister and is also alleged to be linked to various money laundering schemes as well as to the Iranian military. Although some sanctions were lifted on Iran earlier in the year, it is still an offence to do business with the Iranian Republican Guard.

Mr Trump has not commented on the case although his staff have said that the project had been delayed because of economic conditions.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

Georgia to build new airport

MAY 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — State-owned company United Airports of Georgia said it had opened a tender for the construction of a new airport in the town of Zugdidi, 300km west of Tbilisi. The new airport, which will be built in the same location as the existing one, will service both domestic and international flights.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 283, published on June 3 2016)

Work starts in Georgia on world’s sixth largest hotel

BATUMI/Georgia, MAY 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Georgian real estate developer Orbi Group said it has started construction work on a $120m hotel in Batumi called the Twin Tower, a sign that tourism and business on Georgia’s Black Sea coast is possibly rebounding.

The two 45-storey towers will hold 4,500 hotel rooms, making it the sixth largest hotel complex in the world when it is completed by the end of next year.

Batumi is Georgia’s main tourist destination and had been the site of mass redevelopment. The previous government of Mikheil Saakashvili had spent heavily improving Batumi but its fortunes had dived after the election of the Georgian Dream coalition government in 2012.

This lack of favour coupled with an economic downturn triggered by low oil prices stalled many of Batumi’s planned projects.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Azerbaijan may receive funding for pipeline from EBRD

MAY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — During a trip to Azerbaijan, EBRD President, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, confirmed that the Bank is considering a €1.5b ($1.7b) loan to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), part of the Southern Gas Corridor network that will pump gas from Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea fields to Europe (May 25). Sir Suma also said the Bank is considering co-financing the TANAP pipeline, which will run from Azerbaijan through Turkey to Greece, where it will joint TAP.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Georgian authorities inaugurate construction work

MAY 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Georgian authorities inaugurated construction work in Tbilisi at what will become the fifth-largest technological institute in the world. The Cartu Foundation, supported by Georgia’s richest man Bidzina Ivanishvili, will cover the costs, which will run to several million euros, according to the government. It is still unclear when the Georgia’s Technological Institute will be completed. Georgia is trying to position itself as a tech hub for the region.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Azerbaijani and Georgian delegation to attend ceremony TAP construction start

MAY 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan and Georgia sent a delegation to Greece for the groundbreaking ceremony of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), part of a network of pipelines that will pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe, in a show of support for a project that the European Union considers vitally important.

Georgia’s PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili and Azerbaijan’s deputy PM Yagub Eyyubov attended the inauguration event with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, European Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and Special Envoy at the US State Department Amos Hochstein.

“Georgia, as a transit country, reiterates its commitments to the diversification of energy supplies to Europe and expresses supports for existing and future energy projects connected to the Southern Gas Corridor,” Mr Kvirikashvili said.

The so-called Southern Gas Corridor, a network of pipelines, is scheduled to be completed in 2019 and will send 16b cubic metres of gas to Europe every year.

TAP will ship 10b cubic metres from Greece’s border with Turkey across the Adriatic Sea to Italy. From there it will be pumped to central Europe.

Mr Kvirikashvili said the project “creates a new dimension for economic cooperation and for the security in the region.”

Azerbaijan is an integral part of the project. The Corridor’s pipelines will be filled with gas from its major fields, chiefly Shah Deniz.

Azerbaijan is also invested in the construction and management of the pipelines. SOCAR, the state energy company, owns 20% of TAP. BP (20%), Snam (20%), Fluxys (16%), Enagas (16%) and Axpo (5%) consti- tute the remaining shareholders.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)