Tag Archives: gas

Azerbjainan’s energy fund SOFAz denies it plans to buy Latvian gas firm

JAN. 5 2023 (The Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s energy wealth fund SOFAZ was forced to deny that it intended to buy Latvia’s biggest gas trading company Lavija Gaze after some news agencies reported that it would shortly become the biggest shareholder. SOFAZ’s cash pile has been swelled by huge inflows from oil and gas sales this year and analysts have said that it is looking to buy assets, especially in Europe.

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— This story was published in issue 532 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Jan. 16 2023

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2023

Turkmen foreign minister flies to Kabul for Taliban meeting

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OCT. 27 2021 (The Bulletin) — Turkmen officials were preparing to fly to Kabul after the Taliban government said that it supported its moves to build a gas pipeline, dubbed TAPI, across the country.

The project is important to Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov because he wants to diversify Turkmenistan’s gas clients away from an over-reliance on China. The Western-backed government in Afghanistan had supported the TAPI plans but there were some concerns that the Taliban, which took control of Afghanistan in August, might ditch it.

Turkmen officials, though, have taken a comparatively soft line towards the Taliban since they took power, opening up lines of communications and sending aid. Now, it seems, the Taliban have decided to back TAPI.

In a statement, the acting Taliban minister for mines and petroleum, Mohammed Issa Akhund, said that the project would now go ahead, although he didn’t give dates.

“We have been working hard for some time and we are ready to take pride in starting work on the TAPI project,” he said.

The pipeline is slated to carry 33b cubic metres of gas across Afghanistan to Pakistan and India from Turkmenistan’s giant Galkynysh field once it is completed, an ambitious plan by Turkmenistan to turn itself into the region’s main gas exporter.

Under the current plans, Afghanistan would keep about 5% of the gas supplies and also earn hundreds of millions of dollars in transit fees.

Separately, the Taliban government also said that it will pay Uzbekistan millions of dollars in fees it owes for electricity purchases. Like Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan has looked to engage with the Taliban government in Afghanistan since it took control of the country, hosting its officials in Termez and sending envoys to Kabul.

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— This story was published in issue 505 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Oct. 28 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Uzbekneftegaz to launch gas-to-liquid plant this year

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JUNE 11 2021 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekneftegaz said that it would launch its first gas-to-liquids plant in Q4 2021. Opening the plant in the south of the country will reduce Uzbekistan’s reliance on imports of diesel and jet fuel. Uzbekneftegaz has been building the $3.6b plant since 2019. It was supposed to start operations in 2020 but the coronavirus pandemic and strikes over pay and conditions have delayed the construction.

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— This story was published in issue 48 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on June 16 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Kashagan to start work on building gas processing plant

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JUNE 8 2021 (The Bulletin) — Kazakh PM Askar Mamin inaugurated the construction of a gas processing plant at an onshore plant linked to the Kashagan oil project. The Kashagan oil field is in the Caspian Sea but it pumps oil and gas to an onshore processing site. The gas processing plant will start production from the end of 2023 and will have a capacity of 1m cubic metres of gas per year.

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— This story was published in issue 487 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on June 9 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Taliban travel to Ashgabat for talks on TAPI gas pipeline

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FEB. 7 2021 (The Bulletin) — Looking for security guarantees for the TAPI gas pipeline that it wants to build across Afghanistan, Turkmen officials held talks in Ashgabat with the Taliban. TAPI is an ambitious project, pushed by gas-rich Turkmenistan and part-funded by the Asian Development Bank, to build a pipeline across Afghanistan to Pakistan and India. One of the main problems with the project has been security concerns in Afghanistan.

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— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Gazprom increases gas purchases from Turkmenistan

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JAN. 20 2021 (The Bulletin) — Russia’s Gazprom increased gas imports from Turkmenistan in 2020, although these exports still only measure around a tenth of the value of China’s gas purchases from Turkmenistan, but cut purchases from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, media reported. Demand for gas in Russia has dropped because of the coronavirus pandemic.

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— This story was first published in issue 469 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Turkmenistan opens new gas compressor station

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JAN. 16 2021 (The Bulletin) — Turkmenistan opened a new compressor station that it said would double the volume of gas pumped to China. Gas is the cornerstone of Turkmenistan’s economy and China is, by a wide margin, its largest client. The coronavirus, and the various measures taken to counter it, have forced a slump in demand for gas from China, hurting the Turkmen economy. Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said that the compressor station would double the volume of gas that could be pumped to China.

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— This story was first published in issue 469 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Caspian Sea gas reaches Central Europe

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BAKU/JAN. 1 2021 (The Bulletin) — Gas produced in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea which is then pumped through a 3,500km pipeline that cost $45b to build is now, finally, reaching central Europe.

The completion of the so-called Southern Gas Corridor is viewed in Europe as an important part of its strategy to reduce its reliance on Russia for gas supplies, and in Baku as the start of what Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev hopes will be a major boost for the economy.

“The Southern Gas Corridor will strengthen the system of global energy security. It has connected the Caspian region to Europe,” Azerbaijan’s energy ministry said in a statement after Greece, Bulgaria and Italy confirmed that gas had arrived through the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, the final part of the Southern Gas Corridor.

The question analysts have posed, though, is not if gas will be delivered to Europe, but how much? There have been concerns that lockdowns imposed to control the coronavirus pandemic have dented demand for consumers for gas, although what is shaping up to be a cold European winter may have changed this thinking.

Linked pipelines running across Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and the Balkans now pump gas directly from the BP controlled Shah Deniz 2 project in the Caspian Sea to Europe.

The European Commission is keen on the project because it wants to reduce its dependency on Russia, which controls 34% of the European gas market. It first floated the plan to build a pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Europe in 2008.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Romania’s OMV sells Kazakhstan assets

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DEC. 29 2020 (The Bulletin) –Romania’s OMV sold its two subsidiaries in Kazakhstan, KomMunai and Tasbulat Oil, to Magnetic Oil, which is inked to the Kazakh elite for an undisclosed because it said that it wanted to concentrate on projects closer to its core base in the Balkans. KomMunai and Tasbulat Oil owned four production licences for onshore fields in Kazakhstan’s western Mangistau region.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

The Caspian Sea is shrinking, warn scientists

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ALMATY/DEC. 23 2020 (The Bulletin) — The Caspian Sea, which provides a livelihood for thousands of people and acts as a fulcrum for international transit routes through the Central Asia and South Caucasus region, is shrinking, new scientific research showed (Dec. 23).

The report produced by universities in Germany and the Netherlands said that the Caspian Sea could lose up to a third of its water by 2100, with water level dropping by 18m, marooning previously important ports hundreds of kilometres inland.

The report’s authors said they wanted to use the threat to the Caspian Sea to highlight the dangers of global warming to inland seas and lakes.

“A massive warning signal is the projected catastrophic drop in water levels for the Caspian Sea, the largest lake in the world, which could hit stakeholders unprepared,” the report said.

Previous studies have warned that the Caspian Sea has been shrinking since the 1990s but not this quickly.

Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Azerbaijan border the Caspian Sea, which lies at the centre of a series of transport corridors that ultimately connect East Asia with Europe.

The Caspian Sea also hosts the region’s oil and gas industry and is a wildlife reserve, supporting seals, and migratory birds. The report showed how vast areas of the northern section of the Caspian Sea could dry up, with Atyrau in Kazakhstan effectively being stranded hundreds of kilometres from the shore.

Central Asia’s reputation for ecological disasters is already secure with the shrinking of the Aral Sea, which is shared by Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. It shrank in the 1960s and 1970s to half its original size because of Soviet schemes to siphon off its tributaries to irrigate cotton fields.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin