FEB. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — SOCAR Cape, a joint venture between Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR and British oil fields services company Cape, have won contracts to work on the Shah Deniz field worth $65m, media reported. Shah Deniz is a one of Azerbaijan’s largest oil fields.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded the Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR to a negative outlook from stable because of the decline in global energy prices, Reuters reported. Standard & Poor’s downgraded Azerbaijan’s sovereign rating last month.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Alexander Medvedev, vice-chairman of Gazprom, Russia’s gas monopoly, said the company would cut gas it buys from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Mr Medvedev did not specify why Gazprom had cut its orders from Turkmenistan by 60% and from Uzbekistan by 75% but it may be linked to Russia’s economic downturn.
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
JAN. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Azerbaijan’s debt rating to negative from stable because of the fall in oil prices. It said 44% of Azerbaijan’s GDP and 95% of its exports were linked to the energy industry. Despite calls from various foreign institutions, Azerbaijan has failed to diversify.
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
FEB. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Alexander Medvedev, vice-chairman of Gazprom, Russia’s gas monopoly, said the company would cut gas it buys from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Mr Medvedev did not specify why Gazprom had cut its orders from Turkmenistan by 60% and from Uzbekistan by 75% but it may be linked to Russia’s economic downturn.
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
>>Russia pledges new gas infrastructure system>>
JAN. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — On a trip to Bishkek, Alexei Miller, the CEO of Gazprom, said the Russian state-owned gas company would invest $500m into Kyrgyzstan’s gas network system over the next three years.
This is a massive investment by Russia into what is essentially its backyard, especially during these times of economic turbulence. Gas has become a form of diplomacy and control for the Kremlin and it wants to bring Kyrgyzstan closer into its hegemony.
“This is 1.7 times larger than originally planned,” media quoted Mr Miller as saying of the proposed investment plan. “All the planned works will be financed in full.”
Gazprom bought Kyrgyzstan’s gas monopoly for a symbolic $1 in 2013. This year the Kremlin has already earned credit for negotiating a deal between the Uzbek and the Kyrgyz authorities to supply gas to the south of Kyrgyzstan.
And influence over Bishkek is important for Russia. Over the past decade Kyrgyzstan has swung between supporting the West to looking towards the Kremlin. Now that the US military base outside Bishkek has been dismantled (it went last year) the Kremlin has upped its drive to pull Bishkek closer towards it.
Later this year, Kyrgyzstan plans to join the Kremlin-controlled Eurasian Economic Union. It has sold its gas system to Gazprom and has introduced various legislation that apes Russian laws and, many analysts say, curtails personal freedoms.
Russian dominance over Kyrgyzstan is growing.
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
MO’YNOQ/Uzbekistan, FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Sagynbai Murzayev is a strong and gentle Soviet-made man in his 70s. He used to be a fisherman in windswept Mo’ynoq, a town in Karakalpakstan which lies on the remote western fringe of Uzbekistan. Now he works several jobs and witnesses the Chinese influx.
Mo’ynoq once lay on the shores of the Aral Sea. This sea, though, shrunk rapidly because a Soviet irrigation system siphoned off its tributaries’ waters to feed giant cotton fields.
Left behind is a lunar desert of white dunes that locals call Aralkum (Aral’s Sands).
Murzayev works at the local museum of natural history and has witnessed the retreat from the beginning. His father was also a fisherman, his mother worked in a fishery. He now gathers most of his earnings by driving foreign guests to the sea shores. Most of the visitors are Chinese.
Since 2006 an energy consortium led by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has been exploring oil and gas deposits below the former seabed.
Although national Uzbek publications boast about Karakalpakstan’s growth as an energy-rich region, operations in the Ustyurt Plateau seem, to Murzayev at least, to proceed at a slow pace. The few Chinese workers camping on the shoreline are mainly after a rather different and rather unusual resource for Central Asia — shrimps.
Unexcited, Murzayev looked at a Chinese trawler coming ashore.
“The indiscriminate pillage of natural resources has already been proved to be detrimental for us,” he said. “We need to bring the sea back to life and not to scavenge its dead body.”
In the distance, the town’s crumbling homes are a symbol of the small economic advantages that this uncertain oil and gas bonanza can bring to the region. And all the while the fading memories of the local fisherman who used to work on the lake grow thinner and thinner.
>>By Gianluca Pardelli
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
FEB. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gazprom Armenia was the largest taxpayer in Armenia in 2014, media reported, highlighting just how important Russia is to the Armenian economy. Gazprom Armenia owns Armenia’s gas pipeline system. In 2014 it paid taxes of nearly 43b dram ($90m). This was almost double the second highest taxpayer.
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
JAN. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — BP said it had cut 255 jobs from its operations in Azerbaijan as a result of the sharp drop in oil prices over the past six months. The 255 jobs represents 8% of its total workforce in Azerbaijan. The redundancies highlighted the impact of the oil price drop on the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
JAN. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-based energy company Dragon Oil said it would reduce its capital expenditure in Turkmenistan by 26% this year because of the decrease in oil global price, media reported. Dragon Oil’s slashing of its capital expenditure budget in Turkmenistan highlights the pressures that energy-focused economies are under.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)