SEPT. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Malaysia’s oil and gas company Petronas signed a memorandum with Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR to develop the Goshadash offshore block. Goshadash is located in the Absheron archipelago in the Caspian Sea. Petronas is already active in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas sector, as it owns a 15.5% stake in the Shah Deniz gas field.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rustam Suleimanov, director at Kazakhstan’s state-gas distributor KazTransGas, said that the country is ready to export gas to China from Q4 2016. Over the past few years, Kazakhstan has built up transport capacity to link its gas fields with the main Central Asia- China pipeline, which has pumped gas from Turkmenistan since 2009. Kazakhstan will use Line C of the pipeline, which has a capacity of 20b cubic metres.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 20/21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s oil and gas exports have fallen this year, according to government sources. Gas exports for the first seven months of 2016 amounted to 4.6b cubic metres, 8.6% lower than in the same period last year, Interfax reported. Oil exports in Jan.-Aug. fell to 33.3m tonnes, down 4.2% compared to last year, government sources told Reuters. Oil exports in particular are vital for the Azerbaijani economy. With both the value and volume of oil exports dropping, government revenues have dried up.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Guernsey-based oil company Tethys Petroleum never seems to catch a break.
This time last year it had just turned down a takeover offer from Amsterdam-based Nostrum Oil & Gas, also focused on Central Asia. But its financial outlook remained uncertain and it was still on the market for investors.
In the last months of 2015, the obscure Kazakh oil company Olisol came forward with a proposal to buy a large share of Tethys in exchange for much-needed cash.
This appeared to be the salvation that Tethys, buffeted by the slump in oil prices, needed. Tethys saluted the prospective deal as a life-saving opportunity.
But then hiccups in Kazakhstan and legal disputes with its partners in Tajikistan began churning up Tethys’ road to stability.
Now it faces legal prosecution in Kazakhstan and an arbitration in Tajikistan, which could turn ugly.
Plus repeated delays in securing funding from Olisol have put investors and managers under severe stress. This can easily be spotted by looking at the company’s stock price, which jumps and falls at every update.
In mid-August, its stock price nearly doubled in one day, reaching a four-month high, after Tethys announced that it had cleared an important regulatory hurdle in its recapitalisation efforts.
Now, Tethys’ stock price has settled back at 1.5p/share, an average it has kept in the second half of 2016, quite far down from the 64p it traded at in March 2012.
But those were the days of high oil prices and big spending. It’s a very different picture now.
With oil prices still hovering at around $45/barrel, the future looks as uncertain as ever for Tethys.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia has intensified talks to increase gas supplies from Uzbekistan, as it looks to buy more Central Asian gas. Alexei Miller, chairman of Russia’s gas company Gazprom, met with Alisher Sultanov, his counterpart from Uzbekistan’s state-owned energy company Uzbekneftegaz, in Moscow. Last year, Gazprom imported 6.4b cubic metres of Uzbek gas. Gazprom has been steadily increasing its dealings with Uzbekistan, once seen as the most awkward of the Central Asian states. The death this month of Uzbek Pres. Islam Karimov may also improve bilateral relations.
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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)
SEPT. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s gas distributor said that it will cut Russian gas supplies to Armenia for one week from Sept. 7 to carry out maintenance work on a section of the pipeline that crosses the country from the Caucasus. This is the second time in two months that the pipeline has been closed for maintenance and the cuts highlight the importance of Armenia’s negotiations with Iran to boost supplies from the south.
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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)
AUG. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — After a failed takeover offer, Kazmunaigas will not make a new offer for its London-traded subsidiary KMG EP, Sauat Mynbayev, managing director of Kazmunaigas said. Kazmunaigas, Kazakhstan’s state-owned energy company owns 63% of KMG EP, its exploration and production subsidiary. In July, Kazmunaigas had offered $9/GDR to KMG EP minority shareholders, but minority shareholders rejected the offer, dealing a blow to the Kazakh energy company’s prestige.
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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)
AUG. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov flew to Berlin, a rare visit to Europe, to discuss potential Turkmen gas imports with German leader Angela Merkel.
The visit was controversial because Turkmenistan, which holds the fourth largest gas reserves, is considered one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Human rights activists said that Mr Berdymukhamedov would consider the invitation to Berlin to be a PR coup which he would use in domestic propaganda campaigns.
And speaking alongside Ms Merkel, Mr Berdymukhamedov grinned and talked up Turkmenistan’s gas producing capabilities.
“We in Turkmenistan are interested in delivering our energy resources to the West,” he said.
A few hours earlier a Turkmen delegation had delivered a draft plan for setting up a trans-Caspian corridor to pump gas to Europe.
Ms Merkel said that as well as discussing gas supply deals with Turkmenistan she had also asked for Mr Berdymukhamedov to give access to Turkmenistan’s prisons to Western diplomats.
Human rights lobby groups have condemned Turkmenistan’s alleged practice of secretive imprisonments.
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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)
SEPT. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili paid an official visit to Azerbaijan to discuss partnership in joint infrastructure projects with President Ilham Aliyev. Mr Kvirikashvili was accompanied by energy minister Kakha Kaladze and deputy foreign minister Gigi Gigiadze. The parties discussed the latest developments in the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway and the Southern Gas Corridor pipeline network.
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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)
AUG. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was due to visit German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, a rare European trip for Turkmenistan’s leader. The visit is likely to focus on potential gas supplies to Europe from Turkmenistan but human rights groups have been piling pressure on Ms Merkel to bring up their various human rights grievances with Mr Berdymukhamedov.
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(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)