Tag Archives: gas

Uzbekistan to modernise pipelines

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s state-owned gas firm Uztransgaz will invest $506m modernising its pipeline system. Uztransgaz will spend around $266m building a new section of the 10b cubic metres pipeline from the Ferghana valley to Tashkent which was damaged last year after an explosion. Uztransgaz also said it will modernise one of its compressor stations at the Central Asia-Centre export pipeline and build a new one for a total cost of $215m.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

India snubs Turkmen TAPI pricing

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – India’s oil ministry said in a statement that it will not sign a contract with Turkmenistan that fixes gas prices for supplies coming through the prospective TAPI pipeline. The Indian government said it will not repeat the unprofitable relationship it had with Qatar, which exported liquefied natural gas at a fixed prices. This became costly when oil prices collapsed in 2014 driving down spot prices for gas.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakhstan’s gas distributor loses revenue

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s gas distributor Kaz- TransGas Aimak lost around 124b tenge ($365m) in 2015 selling gas on the domestic market because the government insisted that it keeps prices down. “Every year we incur losses because the wholesale price is kept below production and transport cost, but we make up for the losses in other departments, such as transit and exports,” the company’s CEO Ibulla Serdiyev said in a statement. KazTransGas Aimak is a subsidiary of state-owned Kazmunaigas.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Armenia receives Russian PM

MARCH 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian PM Hovik Abrahamyan hinted that a final decision on the long-running negotiations with Russia over gas prices would be made when Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev visits Yerevan next month. Armenia imports all its gas from Russia, one of its most important allies, and has asked for a cut in price to help it cope with an economic downturn. Russia has agreed a cut but not as drastic as Armenia had wanted.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Editorial: Azerbaijan’s pardon

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In the past weeks, European Union representatives had said soothing, nice words to Azerbaijan’s leadership, especially in light of its key participation in the Southern Gas Corridor infrastructure complex, which will bring Caspian Sea gas to Europe by 2019.

Human rights advocates in the West had lobbied loudly for a hardline position regarding the government’s crackdown on political freedoms.

But the EU chose to avoid the critical topic and went on talking business.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev’s decision to free some political prisoners must be read as a payment in kind to the EU’s soft hand on human rights.

While welcoming the gesture, people in Azerbaijan are still waiting for the release of Ilgar Mammadov, Khadija Ismayilova and Intigam Aliyev, three political prisoners that were not pardoned.

By pardoning political prisoners, the government is holding out an olive branch towards the West, more than towards domestic actors. The struggle for them, for independent media and for opposition parties, is not over just yet.

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Editorial from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Uzbek-Chinese JV plans to start production

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek-Chinese joint venture New Silk Road Oil & Gas Company Ltd plans to start production at the Karakul gas condensate fields in Uzbekistan’s Bukhara region by the end of the year. The leadership of the Uzbekneftegaz National Holding Company, which is a co-founder of the joint venture told Trend it will award drilling tenders in late April-early May 2016.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Azerbaijan’s president praises TANAP

MARCH 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the TANAP gas pipeline project running from the Turkey-Georgia border to the Turkey-Greece border was one of the country’s most important projects. TANAP forms the middle section of the so-called Southern Gas Corridor that will pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe. The TANAP shareholders are Azerbaijan’s SOCAR (58%), Turkey’s BOTAS (30%) and BP (12%).

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Turkmen Pres. flies to Islamabad to boost bilateral ties and talk about TAPI

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov flew to Islamabad for talks on the TAPI gas pipeline shortly after a high-level delegation from Tajikistan had met up with senior Pakistani officials, a sign of just how important Pakistan has become to Central Asian affairs.

According to reports from Islamabad, the talks between Mr Berdymukhamedov and Pakistani PM Sharif Nawaz were friendly and wide- ranging, focusing not just on the proposed TAPI gas pipeline that is supposed to run to India across Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The two leaders signed eight documents, on a number of different issues such as blocking funds to terrorism and fighting money laundering, and also praised progress on developing road links under the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation

And this is important. The TAPI pipeline has brought Pakistan and Turkmenistan closer together, just as the CASA-1000 power transit route plan has brought it closer towards Tajikistan, facilitating discussions on a range of bilateral issues.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Kazakhstan’s Ozenmunaigas hints at job losses

ALMATY, MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a thinly veiled warning, an official from the Mangistau government in west Kazakhstan said that Ozenmunaigas, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s state-owned Kazmunaigas, could start cutting jobs to maintain profitability during the current economic downturn.

Elubai Abilov, representative of the local government, said that the company had not hired new staff since 2014 because it cannot afford to employ new workers.

He then said: “Ozenmunaigas will try to protect every job for its employees.”

Local analysts immediately read these comments as jobs being under threat, although there was no word from Ozenmunaigas itself.

In February, Maksat Ibagarov, Ozenmunaigas’ general director, had said: “We are not planning downsizing or wage cuts, but we are in a difficult situation. To be a profitable company, it is necessary to cut costs and increase oil production.”

Ozenmunaigas operates oil fields near Zhanaozen where riots killed at least 14 people in 2011. Employment is a highly sensitive matter at the company.

Last year, Kazmunaigas wrote off its Ozenmunaigas assets.

Kazmunaigas also said that during the first three quarters of last year Ozenmunaigas operated at a loss, as its average costs were around $65/barrel, while oil prices averaged $55/barrel.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Turkmen President hosts UAE Sultan

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov hosted Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, state minister of the United Arab Emirates and director general of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, for talks in Ashgabat only a few days after he had met up with a senior member of the Qatari government. The two consecutive meetings in Ashgabat underline Mr Berdymukhamedov’s desire to open up a transit route south to the Persian Gulf. Turkmenistan sees itself as a regional gas producer and wants to reach new markets.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)