Tag Archives: construction

Editorial: European gas

MAY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Construction work on the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) has begun. It will link the Azerbaijani and Turkish sections of the so-called Southern Gas Corridor to Greece and Italy.

The Southern Gas Corridor is the EU and the US’ pet project and will bring Azerbaijani gas to Europe.

This is the culmination of years of planning and fending off rival projects, Russian and European.

But the fundamentals of the energy sector have changed dramatically in the past couple of years. The oil price collapse means that profit margins have dropped through the floor, making it near impossible to invest in major infrastructure projects.

That is unless you’re working on the Southern Gas Corridor. The point is not that the Southern Gas Corridor is more profitable than other pipelines, it isn’t, but that politics is more important than economics on this project.

The drivers of the project want to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russia for gas.

ENDS

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

Armenian ministry announces construction of transmission line

MAY 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s ministry of energy said construction of a 220kV transmission line between the Hradzan thermal power plant and the Shinuayr substation will be completed by the end of the year. The 230km-long transmission line will be an important link between power generating centres in Armenia. The World Bank’s International Bank for Reconstruction and Development said it would fund the project with a series of loans.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Chinese institution to fund road projects in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan

APRIL 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The AIIB, a China-backed international financial institution, said it would fund road projects in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. According to unnamed sources quoted in the FT, the AIIB will join an EBRD-funded road project in Dushanbe and a World Bank and EBRD-backed ring road project in Almaty. The AIIB has said it is keen to fund infrastructure upgrades within its Silk Road project.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

WorleyParsons wins contract in Georgia and Azerbaijan

APRIL 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Australia-based WorleyParsons said it won a five-year Engineering, Procurement, Construction Management contract with BP for its operations in Azerbaijan and Georgia. The company will service the BP-operated Sangachal Terminal and pipelines in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. It didn’t say how much the contract was worth.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Mitsubishi sends turbines to Turkmen power plant

APRIL 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) will supply gas turbines and generators to the 400MW Zerger gas-fired power plant in Turkmenistan. Under a $300m contract signed last year, Japan’s Sumitomo is building the plant in the Lebap region of Turkmenistan, 600km north-east of Ashgabat.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Turkmenistan wins lawsuit against Turkish construction company

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A World Bank tribunal rejected a $567m claim by Turkish firm Ickale Insaat against Turkmenistan that the government had deliberately derailed several construction projects, a rare victory for a Central Asian government against private companies.

The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) said the claim was not substantiated by concrete cases of interference.

“There is no basis for the claims in the BIT [a 1992 Turkey-Turkmenistan bilateral treaty to protect investments], which does not create any cause of action under general principles of international law,” the ICSID wrote in its 175-page analysis of the case, specifying that the Turkish company will also have to pay $1.7m, or 20% of Turkmenistan’s total legal fees.

Ickale claimed that Turkmenistan had breached a dozen construction contracts signed in March-November 2007 to supply mainly consulting services on a series on projects.

The Turkmen side denied the accusations and instead said that Ickale failed to deliver on its promises to complete its works by 2009.

Ickale was supposed to deliver machinery and service construction works at two luxury hotels, four schools, one cinema in Ashgabat, and several other projects.

Ickale listed at least eight of these projects as “completed” on its website. Earlier in January, a Stockholm arbitration court had ruled against the Kazakh government in a case

brought by Estonian firm Windoor for reneging on a building deal in Astana.

Relations between Turkish firms and the Turkmen government might be worsening as the opposition newspaper Alternative News Turkmenistan alleged that another construction company Ilk Insaat had planned to sack around 1,200 workers in March-April.

When contacted by The Conway Bulletin, Ilk Insaat’s parent company declined to comment.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Azerbaijan’s Azerkimya signs contract with Technip

MARCH 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Technip Italy and Azerkimya signed an agreement for the reconstruction of the Sumgayit ethylene-polyethylene plant, 30km north of Baku. Technip Italy is a subsidiary of France’s Technip, an oil service company, which left Azerbaijan in January. Azerkimya is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

EBRD finances Kazakh road

FEB. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it is giving Kazavtozhol a $103m loan to widen an 80km stretch of road in southern Kazakhstan on the main south-north highway. The EBRD has been an important driver of infrastructure projects in former Soviet Central Asia since the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Georgia awards contract to build $2.5b Black Sea port to US-Georgian group

FEB. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia awarded a US-Georgian consortium the contract to build a $2.56b deepwater port at Anaklia on the Black Sea, a project that will bolster the country’s role as a major trade link between East and West.

The Georgian government chose the Anaklia Development Consortium (ADC) over two separate bids submitted by China’s state-owned PowerChina and another by Russo- Georgian venture Anaklia Industrial Eco-Park.

ADC is a joint venture between Tbilisi-based TBC Holding and US- based Conti. Mamuka Khazaradze, chairman of TBC Bank, owns TBC Holding.

Kurt Conti, Conti CEO, said in a statement: “We are looking forward to breaking ground and working with the government of Georgia to help forge new paths from Asia to Europe as well as unlocking the economic potential of Georgia’s neighbours and landlocked nations in the Caucasus.”

For Georgia, the project underlines its role as transit country for goods flowing between Asia and Europe. It hosts oil and gas pipelines running from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, has developed its road and rail networks and wants to leverage its position on the Black Sea.

And the government, which has also pledged $100m to the project, said that the deepwater port was vital.

“This will create completely new opportunities for Georgia to make full use of the Silk Road and the South Caucasus transport corridor,” PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili told the press.

The plan will also transform Anakalia, a small town on the border with the breakaway region of Abkhazia.

The construction phase of the port will create an estimated 3,400 jobs, ADC told media, and a total of 6,400 people will be employed at the port when it is up and running.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 267, published on Feb. 12 2016)

Turkmenistan reasserts neutrality

FEB. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukahmedov wants to tinker with Turkmenistan’s constitution to strengthen its commitment to neutrality, official media reported. Last month, in a similar move, Mr Berdymukhamedov approved a new military doctrine which reasserted Turkmenistan’s neutrality. Turkmenistan’s neutrality has been challenged by a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)