DEC. 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Lukoil, the Russian energy company, plans to invest $5b in Uzbekistan over the next five years, making it the Central Asian state’s biggest single foreign investor, media reported. Lukoil is investing in three major gas producing projects in Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)
DEC. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan will halt all its oil exports via Russia in February, an official for the Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR told Reuters. Azerbaijani-Russian relations have become increasingly strained and over the past few years Azerbaijan has shift most of its oil exports to Europe via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)
DEC. 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkey will take a larger stake in the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) running from the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea to Europe, said Rovnag Abdullayev, head of Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR. Statoil and Total will be offered smaller stakes to accommodate Turkey’s ambitions.
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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)
DEC. 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Profits from SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company, are disappearing offshore through a network of faceless companies controlled by one mysterious man.
That’s the short version of how Azerbaijan’s energy sector is run according to the London-based anti-corruption lobby group Global Witness in their new report entitled “Azerbaijan Anonymous”.
“While SOCAR and its partners may well have acted within the law, the lack of transparency about SOCAR’s partners and how they came to be involved in the Azerbaijani oil industry raises questions over potential conflicts of interest, preferential treatment, and the risk of corruption,” Global Witness wrote.
SOCAR has denied that it has done anything illegal and said in response: “The Republic of Azerbaijan is a founding member of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) task force subjecting the reviews of SOCAR to thorough examination and auditing.”
The EITI is a group set up to monitor whether resource-rich countries spend their revenues responsibly. Global Witness’s report criticised EITI too and said it was a weak institution with little genuine influence.
On Azerbaijan, the Global witness report said that Anar Aliyev, the mysterious owner of several companies linked to SOCAR, was virtually unknown and that he was working on behalf of several higher profile individuals. It said that Mr Aliyev was formally responsible for dozens of companies which have generated $375m profit over five years.
Aliyev is a common surname in Azerbaijan and Anar Aliyev has no family connection with Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s president.
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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)
NOV. 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Two workers died and 26 are still ill after they were poisoned while working at an oil services company in Zhanaozen, west Kazakhstan, media reported. The location of the poisoning is extra sensitive in Kazakhstan because Zhanaozen was the scene of anti-government rioting in 2011.
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(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)
DEC. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Greek parliament ratified a deal to build the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) which will connect Turkey with Italy and send Azerbaijani gas to the EU. The Greek parliament’s ratification is important as it keeps TAP on track for a construction start in 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)
NOV. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Topaz Energy and Marine, an oil field service company based in Dubai, said it had won two contracts worth $100m contract with BP in Azerbaijan. Topaz said it will perform supply duties at the ACG and Shah Deniz fields in the Caspian Sea. It will launch one vessel to serve the contract this year and another next year.
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(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)
NOV. 21 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Uzbekistan have ordered residents of Tashkent to use wood as fuel to combat energy shortages, Uzbek media reported. According to one website, the order has sent wood prices in Tashkent rocketing. People in Uzbekistan have been experiencing shortages of gas and electricity for months.
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(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)
NOV. 22 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — British energy company BP plans to commission a new oil platform at the $6b Chirag Oil Project by the end of this year, media reported. The Chirag Oil Project is part of BP’s efforts to boost production at the ACG oil field in the Caspian Sea.
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(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)
NOV. 20 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek government fired the head of its gas pipeline monopoly Uztransgaz, Tulyagan Jurayev, less than a month after the head of Uzbekneftegas, the state energy company, was also sacked. It’s unclear why Mr Jurayev was sacked. Analysts said it may be part of a power struggle in Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 161, published on Nov. 20 2013)