Tag Archives: engineering

Kazakhstan scraps helicopter manufacturing

ALMATY, JAN. 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Eurocopter Kazakhstan Engineering, a headline joint-venture set up in 2011 between Kazakhstan Engineering National Company and France’s Airbus Helicopters, has stopped manufacturing helicopters because of the economic slowdown, its CEO, Timur Tilinin, said in an interview with the pro-government Astana Times newspaper.

The company was licensed to manufacture the Eurocopter 145, a twin engine utility helicopter that can be used as passenger transport or for search and rescue missions. It can carry up to nine passengers and two crew.

Mr Tilinin said that Eurocopter Kazakhstan Engineering was the backbone of the Kazakh aviation industry and that it had manufactured 26 Eurocopter 145s since 2011, eight for the ministry of defence and 18 for the ministry of interior’s emergency service.

“Unfortunately, due to the (economic) crisis we halted the project,” he said. “In mid-2015, ECKE launched a transformation plan to move from pure manufacturing to, first, becoming the distributor of Airbus helicopters in all Central Asia and, second, performing maintenance of the aircraft. We do the maintenance of all the helicopters we have produced.”

Moving from manufacturing helicopters to being a distributor service centre will dent the prestige of the project. It also underlines just how heavily Kazakhstan has been hit by the economic downturn.

Government agencies, Eurocopter Kazakhstan Engineering’s only clients, have been hard hit.

Part of the distribution process involves reassembling helicopters which are manufactured in Germany and then dismantled for export.

Kazakhstan is striving to broaden out its industrial base away from oil and gas.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

Hualing opens factory in Georgia

MAY 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Chinese company Hualing will open an elevator-manufacturing factory in Kutaisi, Georgia’s second largest city, officials said. Kutaisi mayor Shota Murgulia said the company is also negotiating four other projects with the government. The Hualing Group has pledged to invest 40m lari ($18.6m) over the next 30 years into its operations in the Kutaisi free industrial zone.

ENDS

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

Cement production to boost in Tajikistan

DEC. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The lower house of Tajikistan’s parliament ratified a $145m investment deal to boost cement production in the country. Under the agreement, a Tajik-Chinese joint venture will build three new facilities, including a cement plant with a capacity of 1.2m tonnes in the Yovon district, 40km south of Dushanbe. Three unnamed Chinese businessmen will own 75% of the joint venture and the Tajik government will retain the remaining 25%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Kyrgyzstan to sell paper plant

OCT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kyrgyz government said it wants to sell a bankrupt paper mill for 300m soms ($4.3m), a fraction of its original value. The plant, built in the early 2000s through a Kyrgyz-Chinese joint venture, cost around 151m yuan, ($24m) to build. It operated for only two years, before being mothballed. Paper prices have collapsed over the past few years, forcing paper mills around the world out of business.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)

Kazakh paper manufacturer accuses former directors

OCT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Britain’s High Court decline an appeal by Maksat Arip and Baglan Zhunus, two former directors of Kazakh paper manufacturer Kagazy, against freezing their assets. Kagazy has accused Mr Arip and Mr Zhunus of misappropriating company funds in connection with Kagazy’s 2007 IPO in London and filed a $280m lawsuit. The trial will begin in April 2017.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)

Wood Group to supply facilities at Kazakh oil field

OCT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Scotland-based Wood Group won a service contract to supply an automated system for crude storage facilities at the Tengiz oil field in Western Kazakhstan. It said the automated system would increase storage capacity. Bechtel, a US-based engineering company, signed the multimillion dollar deal with Wood Group.

ENDS

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

China builds power plant in Tajikistan

OCT. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — NORINCO International, a Chinese engineering contractor, will build a coal-fired power plant in the Basht district, about 100km to the east of Dushanbe, helping the country increase its power generation capacity. The new plant will have a 350MW capacity. TBEA, another Chinese company, is currently building a similar power plant in Dushanbe, highlighting China’s growing role in Tajikistan.

ENDS

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

Chinese company starts construction in Uzbekistan

SEPT. 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Chinese manufacturer Poly Technologies said that it had started construction at a new rubber plant in Uzbekistan. During the ceremony at the Angren Special Industrial Zone, Gulomjon Ibragimov, Uzbekistan’s deputy PM said the project would improve rubber production capacity in the country.

ENDS

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

New Silk Road shapes up in Kazakhstan

MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Along Kazakhstan’s southern border hundreds of labourers are working on a project that is supposed to reignite the old Silk Road and turn the country into a central trading hub once again.

It’s an ambitious $5.5b project to build a road that crosses this vast arid land prone to freezing, heavy winters and burning, hot summers.

Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev inaugurated the project in September 2009. Nearly five years later, work is still ongoing.

At a roadside outside Shymkent, a teeming city of 650,000 people on the border with Uzbekistan, Baurzhan surveyed his road-building teams.

“Our company is a small private local enterprise and we won a small tender. Together with other local companies we are building most access roads and smaller sections of the highway,” he told a Conway Bulletin correspondent.

“Our work is going well, but severe weather has delayed our work by at least three months.”

Heavy snow storms have smashed into southern Kazakhstan this year, flooding villages and infrastructure.

The road is supposed to link Lianyungang on China’s eastern coast with St Petersburg in Russia. It’s an 8,445km stretch, with 2,787km cutting through the Kazakh steppe.

But there is some debate over whether Kazakhstan will actually benefit from this super-highway.

In Shymkent, Nurzhan, a 26-year-old British educated university graduate, said: “The road won’t benefit Kazakhstan, as we will only be the link between two bigger markets.”

A commercial truck driver disagreed. “My brother is buying fifty brand new trucks,” he said. “We hope this investment will bring returns as soon as trade starts.”

(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)

Azerbaijan approves loan from Germany

FEB. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s parliament has ratified a 370m euro loan from Germany that will be used to improve various infrastructure including drinking water in some rural regions, media reported. Azerbaijan is looking for both financial and technical help in developing its Soviet-era infrastructure.

(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)