Tag Archives: electricity

Japanese holding to build Turkmen power plant

OCT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Sumitomo Corporation, a Japanese holding focusing on industrial production, said it will build a $330m thermal power plant in the north- western part of Turkmenistan. Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, another Japanese company, will provide the gas turbine for the new 400 megawatt plant. Japanese PM Shinzo Abe will visit Turkmenistan at the end of October to attend the signing of the deal.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Kyrgyz electricity prices rise

OCT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nurbek Elbayev, director of the Kyrgyz energy regulatory agency, said electricity tariffs will rise sharply over the next two years. The regulator will impose a 21% increase in August 2016 and a 29% rise in 2017. Electricity prices have risen across the region, triggering civil unrest.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Azerbaijan to finance solar plants in Germany and Turkey

OCT. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Akim Badalov, head Azerbaijan’s State Agency on Renewable Energy sources, said Azerbaijan will finance the construction of two small solar power plants in Germany and Turkey. The capacity of the prospective solar plant in Germany is 10 megawatts, according to the Trend news agency. Although still marginal, Azerbaijan’s interest in renewable energy has grown steadily in recent years.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Stock market: KAZ Minerals, Nostrum, KEGOC

OCT. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The biggest mover in the stock markets for Central Asia and the South Caucasus was London-listed KAZ Minerals, which gained a staggering 65% since the beginning of October at 145p on Friday. Its performance was in line with most commodity producers which were hit by the Glencore slump last week.

Kazakhstan-focused Nostrum Oil & Gas was stable this week at around 524 pence, after rebounding from a sharp drop last week. Its failed takeover offer for Tethys Petroleum affected its performance in the market.

Polyus Gold continued its roller- coaster to end the week at 198 pence. Polyus has shown a volatility of +/- 3% over the past three weeks.

In local markets, KEGOC, Kazakhstan’s state-owned electricity company became one of the strongest players in KASE, gaining over 25% in the past three weeks. However, because its stocks are denominated in tenge, the value of its assets has not fared as well as it seems. Speculative moves behind the multi-million dollar transactions of the past weeks have turned KEGOC into an appealing investment in a market marred with worsening assets.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)

Armenia to shut down nuclear power

OCT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s Metsamor nuclear power plant will shut down in two stages in 2017-2018 as part of a planned modernisation of the plant, the Armenian government said. The ministry of energy had planned one 6- month long closure in 2017, but pressure on electricity prices have forced the government to split the period into two phases.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)

Karapetyan now targets Armenia’s power stations

YEREVAN, OCT. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — After buying Armenia’s electricity network last week, the Russia-based Tashir Group is on the brink of buying the Hrazdan thermal power station, one of the country’s biggest and most important electricity generating plants.

The Armenian Public Services Regulatory Commission said it approved a deal for Tashir, which is owned by Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan, to buy Hrazdan from Russia’s Inter RAO. Inter RAO also sold the electricity network to Tashir.

After a summer of popular protests against electricity price increases that Inter RAO had wanted to impose, Tashir Group, which has a large property portfolio, will now dominate the Armenian electricity sector.

Mr Karapetyan, who is based in Moscow and is one of the richest men in Russia, is the brother of Karen, a member of the Armenian parliament.

The Armenian government backed the deals involving Tashir Group, although details have not yet been disclosed.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)

Armenia and Iran to boost electricity-gas swap

OCT. 4 2015, YEREVAN (The Conway Bulletin) — At a meeting in Tehran, the Iranian and Armenian energy ministers said they will increase the volume of their gas-for-electricity swap deal, deepening relations between the two neighbours.

Alireza Kameli, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Export Company, told local media that Iran is ready to supply as much as 2.3b cubic metres of natural gas yearly to Armenia through the existing 140km long pipeline. According to Armenian government figures, Armenia currently imports less than 400m cubic metres of gas every year from Iran. By comparison, Armenia imports roughly five times as much gas from Russia as it does from Iran every year.

“Armenia is currently unable to take full advantage of the capacity of the pipeline because of the lack of necessary infrastructure,” Mr Kameli said alluding to the lack of electricity infrastructure in Armenia.

Still the the two sides are working together on extending Armenia’s electricity transmission network. Armenia is building a third high-voltage transmission line, part-funded by Iran. According to the Armenian ministry of energy, the country currently exports 1.8b kWh of electricity to Iran every year, a volume that can be increased up to 6.9b kWh.

Electricity is one of their biggest exports for Armenia. It’s also become highly political. This year thousands of people protested in Yerevan against proposed price rises. The government eventually agreed to subsidise the price rises.

And this month, the government agreed the sale of the electricity distribution network by Russia’s Inter RAO to an Armenian billionaire.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)

Billionaire buys Armenia’s electricity network

SEPT. 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian utilities company Inter RAO sold Armenia’s electricity network for an undisclosed amount to the Moscow-based Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan. The deal has come as a surprise.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Finnish company wins tender in Kazakhstan

SEPT. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Finnish-based Wärtsilä won a tender to build a 40MW combined heat and power (CHP) plant near the Caspian port of Aktau, in west Kazakhstan. The Kazakh company KazAzot will manage the plant, which Wärtsilä plans to complete in late 2016. The plant will power the city of Aktau and its industrial hub.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Kyrgyz and Tajik CASA-1000 worries

SEPT. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an interview with a local newspaper, an official from Pakistan’s ministry of water and power said it was $142m short of its promised $297m investment for the so called CASA- 1000 power transit project. This is a serious concern for the project which is set to cost a total of $1.2b. If completed it will boost Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan power exports to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)