OCT. 14 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s minister for oil and gas, Kakageldy Abdullayev, told reporters at an energy forum that construction of the TAPI pipeline would begin in 2017. TAPI aims to pump gas from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to markets in Pakistan and India. Bangladesh has again stated it would like to join the project.
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(News report from Issue No. 109, published on Oct. 19 2012)
OCT. 10 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a government meeting broadcast on TV, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev blamed BP for declining oil production from fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.
Such a public and unequivocal rebuke is virtually unprecedented in Azerbaijan’s recent energy history and it will sting.
BP is the dominant foreign oil company operating in Azerbaijan. Other fields are due to come on stream in the next decade but at the moment the key operations are the Shah Deniz gas field and the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) fields.
Mr Aliyev said that “grave mistakes” by BP had triggered a 12% reduction in ACG’s oil production this year and cost Azerbaijan $8b in lost oil revenues over the past three years.
BP, which owns about 36% of the field, has not given a reason for the decrease in oil production but, in response, said it was committed to both ACG and working in Azerbaijan.
The start of production at ACG had been greeted with great excitement but anticipated production of 1m barrels of oil a day quickly evaporated.
Now, the challenge is to maintain output at a far more modest 700,000 barrels of oil a day and to appease the all-powerful Mr Aliyev.
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(News report from Issue No. 108, published on Oct. 12 2012)
OCT. 9 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP announced that gas supplies from the Shah Deniz field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea to Turkey had resumed after a blast on the South Caucasus pipeline disabled it on Oct. 4. CORRECTION: In last week’s bulletin, we mistakenly named the damaged gas pipeline as the Baku-Tbilsi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. BTC is, of course, an oil pipeline. Apologies.
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(News report from Issue No. 108, published on Oct. 12 2012)
OCT. 4 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – An explosion disabled the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline which pumps gas from the Shah Deniz fields in the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea to Turkey, media reported. This is the second explosion in the Turkish part of the BTC pipeline, a route critical for European gas supplies, this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 107, published on Oct. 5 2012)
SEP. 14 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan plans to produce 250b cubic metres (bcm) of gas by 2030, up from an earlier 230bcm estimate, media reported. Turkmenistan already produces 75bcm of gas. The estimate is based on tapping reserves and underlines the country’s status as a leading gas producer.
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(News report from Issue No. 105, published on Sep. 21 2012)
SEP. 9 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a $1b deal, ONGC Videsh, the overseas investment arm of India’s state-owned energy company ONGC, bought nearly 3% of the Azeri, Chirag and Guneshli (ACG) group of oil fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea and a similar size stake in the Baku-Tbilisi- Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, media reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 104, published on Sep. 14 2012)
JULY 28 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen officials will travel to Singapore, New York and London in September and October to try and tempt potential investors into sponsoring a proposed gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India via Afghanistan and Pakistan, media reported. The estimated cost of the proposed pipeline, dubbed TAPI, is around $10b.
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(News report from Issue No. 099, published on Aug. 3 2012)
JULY 9 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – With the announcement of the TANAP pipeline, Europe is likely to settle for less ambitious volumes of gas to push through the South Caucasus and Turkey to its cities.
This has forced Turkmenistan to turn east once more for new markets for its vast gas reserves.
Turkmenistan has already carved out a niche as one of Asia’s emerging main gas suppliers. China, Iran, the Gulf states and Afghanistan, Pakistan and India have all signed deals over the past 18 months to boost gas imports from Turkmenistan.
Now Bangladesh can, almost, be added to the list. Bangladesh wants to convert the so-called TAPI pipeline into TAPIB, media reported.
The Asian Development Bank, which is funding construction of the TAPI pipeline, has said it is still waiting for a formal application from Bangladesh but if, and when, it does come, it seems like an obvious extension to an already ambitious project.
All this is likely to be music to the ears of Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. Since coming to power in 2007, he has overseen the boom in export markets for Turkmen gas.
Analysts estimate that over the next few years, Turkmenistan will produce 75b cubic metres of gas annually, nudging into the world’s top ten gas producers.
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(News report from Issue No. 096, published on July 13 2012)
MAY 28 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov sacked his energy minister, Bairamgeldy Nedirov, for “serious shortcomings”, media quoted the presidential office as saying. Mr Nedirov had served as energy minister since Aug. 2008. His dismissal on May 25 came two days after signing a gas deal with India and Pakistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 090, published on June 1 2012)
MAY 19 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – An Uzbek-South Korean joint venture said it had secured a $2.5b loan from a consortium of banks to build a gas plant in the northwest of the country. The planned gas plant at the Surgil field is considered an important part of Uzbekistan’s future energy policy and will create 1,000 jobs.
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(News report from Issue No. 089, published on May 25 2012)