Tag Archives: gas

Romania’s OMV sells Kazakhstan assets

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.

— ENDS

— 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

Leave a Reply

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.

— ENDS

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

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Oil companies close Ashgabat offices on coronavirus fears

Leave a Reply

JULY 29 (The Bulletin) — Petronas, the Malaysian oil and gas company, closed its office in Ashgabat after 10 of its employees tested positive for the coronavirus.

The closure is perhaps the strongest indication yet that despite the insistence of Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov that Turkmenistan had escaped the pandemic, coronavirus has infiltrated the country.

Turkmen media has also reported that Chinese state-owned China National Petroleum Company has also closed its office Ashgabat. Since a visit by the World Health Organisation (WHO) this month, masks have become commonplace in Turkmenistan and some shopping centres and bazaars have been closed.

ENDS

— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Gas sales will prop up Azerbaijani economy – S&P

Leave a Reply

JULY 27 (The Bulletin) — Standard & Poor’s, the rating agency, said that extra gas sales from the Caspian Sea project Shah Deniz 2 will push up Azerbaijan’s GDP over the next few years, countering the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. It predicted GDP growth of 3.7% in 2021-23. Oil and gas sales generate 40% of Azerbaijan’s GDP.

ENDS

— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Armenian government declines gas price rise for consumers

Leave a Reply

YEREVAN/JUNE 19 (The Bulletin) — Consumers in Armenia will not pay any more for their gas despite a push by Russia’s Gazprom, the gas supplier, to increase prices after the Armenian Public Services Regulatory Commission ordered a price freeze.

The ruling is a victory for Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan who has styled himself as the champion of the people since he was propelled to power in a revolution in 2018.

In 2015, street protests against rises to electricity tariffs forced the government into an embarrassing u-turn and Mr Pashinyan was desperate not to stoke frustration now, especially with anger at the government’s handling of the coronavirus growing and the prospect of the economy tipping into a recession.

Quoting the Public Services Regulatory Commission, media in Armenia said that consumers would continue to pay a subsidised 139 Armenian drams per cubic metre of gas and vulnerable groups will pay 100 drams per cubic metre if their consumption does not exceed 600 cubic metres per year.

Instead, businesses that consume more than 10,000 cubic metres of gas per year and greenhouses will pay more for their gas, meeting some of the price rises that the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom had been asking for.

Earlier this month, Mr Pashinyan had proposed that the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union unify gas tariffs across the region.

This was rejected by the Kremlin, though, which said it needed more price flexibility to react to global market moves.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Gazprom wants to increase price of gas for Armenia’s poorest

Leave a Reply

YEREVAN/April 1 (The Bulletin) — Gazprom Armenia has applied to the country’s Public Services Regulatory Commission to increase the price of gas that it supplies to the poorest sections of Armenian society from August, media reported (April 1).

Any move by Gazprom Armenia to increase the price it charges Armenian households for gas will be difficult to pull off. The impact of the coronavirus has undermined households’ ability to pay higher prices and Armenian society has a reputation for resisting utility price rises. In 2015 a proposed electricity price rise in Armenia led to major protests in Yerevan and an eventual climbdown.

Reports said that from Aug. 1, Gazprom Armenia wants to charge households on social benefits 36% more for their gas and to slightly reduce the price paid by other households. The overall effect would be to equal out pricing. There is no publicly available data on the number of low-income households on social benefits.

Armenian officials lined up to criticise the proposed price increase, calling it inappropriate given the probable economic impact of the spread of the coronavirus.

“Given the current situation in the global energy market, we consider it appropriate to start new negotiations on reducing the price of thousand cubic meters of gas on the Armenian-Georgian border,” Armenia’s deputy PM Mher Grigoryan wrote in a letter to the chairman of Gazprom, Alexei Miller.

The Russian side has not responded but negotiations are expected to be fraught. When Russia has previously increased the price it charges Armenia for gas, the Armenian government has said that it will switch to buying gas from its neighbour Iran with which it has built up friendly relations over the past decade.

Media also reported that Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the proposed gas price rises. He said that gas should be priced in roubles, which has fallen in value over the past month because of a slump in oil prices and the impact of the spread of the coronavirus.

“We believe that it will be more correct and logical to pay for gas in roubles,” Mr Pashinayn was quoted as saying.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Azerbaijan’s Socar confirms major Caspian Sea oil field find

Leave a Reply

BAKU/March 19 (The Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state oil company Socar confirmed that it had found a major oil field in the Caspian Sea.

Announcing the find, Socar chairman Rovnag Abdullayev said that this was the first significant oil discovery in Azerbaijan’s territory since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

“Its oil reserves estimated more than 60m tonnes,” he said. “Development of the Karabagh field will significantly contribute to Azerbaijan’s oil incomes.”

Roughly, 60m tonnes of oil equals 440m barrels, although Mr Abdullayev did not say how much of this was recoverable. This is important as recoverable barrels of oil can be a small proportion of the actual reserves. The Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field, the bedrock of Azerbaijan’s economy, by comparison has around 4b barrels of recoverable reserves and the Kashagan field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea, which Kazakhstan started operating in 2016, has an estimated 9-13b barrels of recoverable oil reserves.

Azerbaijan is still reliant on oil and gas to power its economy. This year it is turning on gas supplies to central Europe pumped from the BP-led Shah Deniz 2 project via a series pipelines known as the South Gas Corridor.

Socar’s partner in the exploration of the Karabagh field is Equinor, the majority state-owned Norwegian energy company that was formerly called Statoil. Equinor owns a 7.27% stake in the ACG project and an 8.71% stake in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline that pumps gas from the Caspian Sea to Turkey. It has not commented on exploration of the Karabagh field.

The Karabagh field, which lies 120km east of Baku, was first discovered by Soviet geologists in the 1950 but was never developed. In the mid-1990s.

Nick Coleman, senior editor at S&P Global Platts, told The Bulletin that although not the biggest oil find, the Karabagh field will still be useful for Azerbaijan.

“You have all the infrastructure there already so it should be relatively low-cost to develop,” he said. “And it is still a pretty decent size. If you’d found that in the North Sea you’d have done very well.”

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kazmunaigas looking at London IPO later this year

Leave a Reply

FEB. 25 2020 (The Bulletin) — The deputy CEO of Kazakhstan’s state-owned oil and gas company, Kazmunaigas, Zhakyp Marabayev, said that it would be looking to list on the London Stock Exchange in October or November. Kazakhstan has talked up the sale of shares in Kazmunaigas for years as part of its “People’s IPO” but has constantly delayed going ahead with it, often saying that market conditions were not right.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 438 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

New domestic gas pipeline opens in Kazakhstan

Leave a Reply

DEC. 27 2019 (The Bulletin) — Kazakhstan completed construction of the Saryarka gas pipeline that will run from the Kyzylorda region to Nur Sultan. The pipeline is important as it will pump extra gas to Nur Sultan and other cities along the route, including Karaganda, Temirtau and Zhezkazgan. The project to build the 1,061km pipeline was launched to improve Kazakhstan’s energy infrastructure.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 433 of the weekly Bulletin on Jan. 13 2020

— Copyright owned by the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

Italian company signs deal to give Turkmenistan technical support on gas pipeline

Leave a Reply

DEC. 5 (The Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s national oil and gas company Turkmengas signed a deal worth around $13m, with Italy’s RINA to provide technical support for the construction of a planned gas pipeline that will run 214km across the country. Italy has been courting Turkmenistan for projects and, last month, Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov made a rare visit to the EU to meet with Italian leaders.
ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 431 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 9 2019