DEC. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — US-based Frontera Resources said its final geological assessment of the South Kakheti gas complex it operates in Georgia will be completed in the first quarter of 2016. Frontera said it also plans to shortly start production, which will initially amount to 77m cubic metres of gas annually.
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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
JAN. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan will begin construction work on a new gas pipeline running to China in March, media reported quoting Deputy Economy Minister Aibek Kaliev. The pipeline, which will take several years to build, will complete a route running from gas fields in east Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and on to Kyrgyzstan and China.
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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
DEC. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – KazTransGas, Kazakhstan’s gas distributor, named Rustam Suleymanov as its new CEO. Mr Suleymanov has worked at KazTransGas for 15 years. Former CEO Kairat Sharipbayev was named chairman of the board.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — British services company KCA Deutag won two contracts with BP worth up to $1b for operations, maintenance and engineering work in Azerbaijan. The Aberdeen-based company will work on seven oil and gas platforms operated by BP off the coast of Azerbaijan, including those exploiting the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field and the Shah Deniz gas field, two of Azerbaijan’s most important energy projects. KCA Deutag has worked in Azerbaijan for 20 years, mostly with BP. Rune Lorentzen, president of Offshore at KCA Deutag, said: “These major contract awards build on KCA Deutag’s long standing relationship with BP, and recognise our efforts to deliver both continuous improvement and value to our client.”
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it would allocate a loan of up to $2.24b to co-finance transport and energy projects in Azerbaijan in 2016- 2017. Out of this loan, the ADB said it would allocate $500m to developing the electricity network and $40m for renewable energy.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Iran ministry of energy said it may expand its activities in several international oil and gas fields, including Shah Deniz, Azerbaijan’s biggest gas project.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – After a decade of talks, Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan and India officially started construction of the TAPI pipeline that, they hope, will pump gas from Central Asia to South Asia by end-2018.
The $10b project is ambitious and fraught with risk. For a start nearly half the 1,800km route crosses Afghanistan where security has worsened over the past couple of years. This week the Asian Development Bank cut funding for a Turkmenistan-Tajikistan rail project that also crossed north Afghanistan because of security concerns.
Still, at the official opening ceremony for the TAPI pipeline in Mary, Turkmenistan, Mr Berdymukhamedov was in an upbeat mood.
“TAPI is designed to become a new effective step towards the formation of the modern architecture of global energy security, a powerful driver of economic and social stability in the Asian region,” media quoted him as saying.
By December 2018, so the plan goes, Turkmenistan should start pumping 33b cubic metres of gas a year to India.
But, as Anupama Sen, senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, explained for India, TAPI has always been more of a political, rather than gas supply, project. She said India is increasing coal production to meet power demand as it is cheaper than importing gas.
“India’s negotiations over TAPI have been driven by diplomacy,” she said.
India has been trying for years to bolster its influence in Central Asia where Russia and China are so dominant. It lost out in 2013 on a stake in the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea to China. TAPI now gives it a stake in Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A source at Azerbaijan’s statistic committee told Reuters that SOCAR’s low output for the first 11 months of 2015 had pushed down total oil and gas production in Azerbaijan. Azeri-Chirag- Guneshli, a BP-operated offshore oilfield, also contributed to a contraction in production of 0.5%.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Alexei Miller, the chairman of Russia’s Gazprom, said he is in talks with Iran and Armenia over a gas swap deal. The deal would see Iran receive Russian oil in the north via Azerbaijan. In return Iran would supply Armenia with gas. Armenia currently receives Russian gas via Georgia.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — As the diplomatic row between Russia and Turkey intensifies, some analysts believe it could spill over into a gas war similar to the Russia- Ukraine crises of the past decade.
When Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu visited Baku last week, his statement on the acceleration of construction works for the TANAP pipeline rebounded all over the press.
Mr Davutoglu said he had reached an agreement with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev to inaugurate the new gas pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey ahead of schedule. That is, before 2018.
Some, including myself, read this as a poke in the eye to Russia, which had imposed a food and travel embargo and suspended work on another pipeline, Turkish Stream, that would have connected Russia and Turkey via the Black Sea.
Turkey wanted to show Russia that it had options and where better to go to prove this than its erstwhile ally Azerbaijan – also a former Soviet state?
But there is also another important point that should not be overlooked. What gas would a TANAP pipeline completed early actually carry?
Supply for TANAP will come from the expanded Shah Deniz gas field (Shah Deniz-2) off the coast of Baku in the Caspian Sea.
But Shah Deniz-2 will only come online with its first gas in 2018. It simply can’t be brought forward.
So the question remains as to what gas Azerbaijan will use to fill the 16bn cubic metres it promised to its western customers if TANAP is built early.
In short, the acceleration of construction works at TANAP is meaningless before the gas is also ready to be shipped.
It is political hot air.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)