FEB. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — BP’s top executive in the Caucasus, Gordon Birrell, told Reuters the consortium exploiting the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil field in the Caspian Sea would invest $2b into the project this year. Azerbaijan has put the BP-led consortium under pressure to stem a decline in oil production at ACG. ACG is the biggest oil field in Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Petrovietnam, Vietnam’s state-owned energy company, has agreed to buy 3.5m barrels of Azeri crude oil this year, it said in a statement. The deal is a significant success for Azerbaijan which is looking to extend its client base and its international standing.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh state-owned pipeline monopoly KazTransGaz agreed to take a $700m loan from the China Development Bank to build a second 311km gas pipeline from southern Kazakhstan to China. The loan highlights the dominance of Chinese finance and its hunger for gas in Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan hopes that its long-delayed Caspian Sea oil field Kashagan will finally start producing oil in the second half of the year. Kazakh PM Serik Akhmetov said he hoped Kashagan, which cost $50b to build, would produce 3m tonnes of oil this year. A gas leak halted production last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Lawmakers in Tajikistan’s lower house discussed the draft of a new law that investors hope will help them to do business in its emerging energy sector.
Tajikistan, dependent on fuel imports from Russia and unfriendly neighbour Uzbekistan, is desperate to unlock its own significant hydrocarbons potential. It hopes to both achieve energy security and earn much-needed revenue.
The problem is that the legislation appears unreformed and Byzantine even.
Although details of the law under discussion haven’t been released, it is understood that it is aimed at addressing these problems.
Russia’s Gazprom, Channel Islands-registered Tethys, France’s Total and China’s CNPC are all prospecting in Tajikistan, the latter trio joining forces to exploit the Bokhtar license area in the south-west of the republic which may hold over 3 trillion cubic metres of gas.
Neighbouring China will be the primary customer when — or perhaps at this stage that should still be an ‘if’ — Bokhtar starts gas production.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmennebit, the Turkmen state-owned energy company, plans to increase exploration in the Caspian Sea after hitting oil in a handful of test wells, media reported. Over the past decade Turkmenistan has turned itself into a regional energy powerhouse.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan has begun constructing a gas chemical complex on the shores of the Caspian Sea, media reported. Turkmenistan has grown wealthy from natural gas sales over the past few years and is trying to boost its domestic industrial base.
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(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan may experience fuel shortages this year, media quoted Sauat Mynbayev, head of Kazmunaigas, as saying. Kazakhstan’s three oil refineries are being upgrading, reducing their capacity and forcing the authorities to import fuel from Russia. The currency devaluation has made fuel imports expensive.
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(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to boost the flow of oil through its Soviet-era Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline, Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft has offered Azerbaijan a reduced price for using the route, media reported.
Azerbaijan and Russia have been arguing about the price of oil shipments through the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline over the past few years. Last year, as the row intensified, Russia said it would close the pipeline altogether.
The root cause of the problem is that Azerbaijan has increased the number of export routes it has serving its energy producing fields in and around the Caspian Sea.
Under a 2013 deal Azerbaijan was supposed to pump 5m tonnes of oil through the 1,330km Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline every year at a cost of just under $16/tonne. This volume never happened and the through-flow of oil from Baku to Novorossiisk dropped to about 1.75m tonnes.
At this volume, Transneft had said it would charge $21/tonne of oil, a price the Azerbaijanis quickly rejected.
The row over oil deliveries from Baku to Novorossiisk has strained relations between the two countries. Azerbaijan has still to respond to Russia’s new offer.
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(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — In case there was ever any doubt over who is in charge, Armenia’s national gas distributor was renamed Gazprom Armenia from ArmRosGazprom, the company said in a statement. Gazprom, Russia’s gas monopoly, finalised buying the whole of Armenia’s gas network in January.
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(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)