AUG. 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The proposed pipeline running from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan and India (TAPI) inched forward after Turkmen and Afghan officials agreed a number of technical issues, Turkmen state news agency reported. The completion of TAPI will further cement Turkmenistan’s position as the region’s main gas supplier.
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(News report from Issue No. 53, published on Aug. 17 2011)
AUG. 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Attention may have focused on Western Europe and the US but Central Asia’s biggest financial centre, Kazakhstan, did not escape the turmoil that has gripped world financial markets over the last week.
A ratings downgrade for the United States and worries about eurozone debt have spooked investors. There has been a flight to safety — gold and the Swiss Franc have boomed — as investors have become more wary of risk. Not good news for emerging markets, then.
Tellingly, Kazakhstan has been one of the worst hit stock markets in the world. Between Aug. 1 – 9 Bloomberg data showed the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) lost about 22% of its value.
To throw in a few numbers, KASE — which includes the state oil and gas company Kazmunaigas, miner ENRC, copper producer Kazakhmys and the country’s biggest banks — is now valued at around 63% of its mid-February value. Many of the companies listed on KASE have their main listing on the London Stock Exchange where the drop was far less dramatic.
KASE recovered 7% of its value on Aug. 10 but it hasn’t been this low since the start of March 2009 when the world was tentatively starting to emerge from the global financial slowdown.
Of course volatile oil prices play their part in pushing KASE up and down but so does general investor sentiment and they worry about emerging market risk.
KASE may be a relatively minor stock market but it is still a decent weather mast. That said, emerging markets with their potential for high growth rates will always attract investors.
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(News report from Issue No. 52, published on Aug. 10 2011)
JUNE 30 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian gas monopoly Gazprom appointed Timur Kulibayev, the favoured son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, as one of its directors. Mr Kulibayev was appointed head of Kazakhstan’s $80b sovereign wealth fund earlier this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 47, published on July 6 2011)
JUNE 21 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – So, an end to the row over Kazakhstan’s participation in the Karachaganak gas field is in sight.
It isn’t official yet but sources at the St. Petersburg economic forum told news agencies the consortium operating Karachaganak had agreed to give a 5% stake to the Kazakh government while the Kazakh government had agreed to pay for another 5% stake.
A deal, perhaps, and an important one.
Karachaganak, in the north-west of the country on the border with Russia, is one of the biggest gas fields in the world. It also produces a fair amount of oil. It is important both for Kazakhstan’s economic development and for investors as a weather mast of government sentiment.
Over the last few years, Kazakhstan has argued it should be given stakes in major energy projects in the country and Karachaganak was the only one it still wasn’t involved with. The government said that when the original contracts were drawn up in the 1990s, it was in a weak negotiating position and the Western companies had taken advantage of that.
The partners in the Karachaganak project are currently — BG Group and Eni with a 32.5% stake each, Chevron with 20% and Lukoil with 15%. They have been negotiating with the Kazakh government over its entry since 2009 when tax claims started appearing against the consortium.
The row had even threatened to derail the project as the government had refused to sign off on the next phase of its development in May until it had been given a stake. With the end of the ownership argument in sight, Karachaganak and investors can all move on.
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(News report from Issue No. 45, published on June 21 2011)
JUNE 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The consortium of foreign energy companies developing the Karachaganak gas field in Kazakhstan have ceded a 10% stake to the Kazakh government, sources at an investment forum in St. Petersburg told media. A deal would end the two-year dispute.
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(News report from Issue No. 45, published on June 21 2011)
JUNE 1 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian gas giant Gazprom nominated Timur Kulibayev, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s son-in-law, to be one of its directors, media reported. Mr Kulibayev has become increasingly powerful. He is considered a potential successor for Mr Nazarbayev and this year he became head of Kazakhstan’s $80b sovereign wealth fund.
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(News report from Issue No. 43, published on June 6 2011)
MAY 25 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The South Yoloten gas field in Turkmenistan is the second-largest in the world, the state media’s website said. Chinese firms are developing the field and plan to start pumping gas to China in 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 42, published on May 30 2011)
MAY 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek President Islam Karimov visited Ashgabat for the second time in seven months to sign agreements with Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdimukhamedov. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, both major gas producers, have increasingly worked together to open new markets and leverage more economic power.
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(News report from Issue No. 39, published on May 9 2011)
MAY 6 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The opening of the Nabucco pipeline which will pump gas to Europe from Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea fields will be delayed by two years to 2017, said the group of European energy companies developing the project. Nabucco is key to European plans to bypass Russia’s pipeline monopoly but it has struggled to secure gas supplies.
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(News report from Issue No. 39, published on May 9 2011)
APRIL 26 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – China secured more control over energy supplies from Central Asia when it agreed to lend Turkmenistan $4b to develop the South Yolotan gas field. South Yolotan is one of the largest gas fields in the world. Most of its gas is expected to be pumped to China.
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(News report from Issue No. 38, published on May 2 2011)