SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Indian officials have been negotiating with their Kazakh counterparts to buy into various energy projects since missing out on a stake in the Kashagan Caspian Sea oil field earlier this year, media reported. India thought it had secured an 8.3% share of Kashagan for $5b only for Kazakhstan to hand the stake to China.
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Less than two weeks after the start of official production, a gas leak halted oil output at the Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea. The gas leak was relatively minor, energy minister Uzakbai Karabalin said, and it wouldn’t delay the start of commercial oil production next month.
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
SEPT. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan is facing a petrol shortage because demand from industry and agriculture is overwhelming production, the head of the Kazakh Fuel Association Ashim Abdrakhmetov told reporters. Mr Abdrakhmetov said shortages are likely to worsen this year when one of Kazakhstan’s three refineries closes for an upgrade.
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(News report from Issue No. 153, published on Sept. 25 2013)
SEPT. 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The consortium developing the Shah Deniz II gas field in Azerbaijan’s sector of the Caspian Sea signed a deal with various companies in the EU to supply them with gas over the next 25 years. The deal will help reduce the EU’s reliance on Russia for gas supplies.
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(News report from Issue No. 153, published on Sept. 25 2013)
SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rovnag Abdullayev, the chairman of Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR, was emphatic when describing a deal between the consortium developing the Shah Deniz II gas field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea and energy companies in the EU.
It was, he said, the “biggest gas deal in the history of Azerbaijan” and it also marked “the beginning of direct links between Azerbaijan’s huge gas resources and the European markets.”
Clearly for Mr Abdullayev the deal to send around 10b cubic metres of gas every year to Europe for 25 years was historic.
It’s certainly big and important. The deal was worth $100b, reportedly, to the energy consortium developing Shah Deniz II — BP, Statoil and SOCAR — and allows Europe to reduce its dependency on Russia for it gas supplies.
Geopolitically, the gas deal has another important undertone.
Russia is the major loser in the deal. It has been unable to secure extra gas supplies from Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has also been able to establish itself as a key competitor to Russia for the European gas market.
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(News report from Issue No. 153, published on Sept. 25 2013)
SEPT. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has steadily increased its gas sales to Georgia over the past few years, Gagamali Seyfullayev, head of state energy company SOCAR’s gas export department, told media. This year Azerbaijan will pump about 1b cubic metres of gas to Georgia, up from 775m in 2011.
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(News report from Issue No. 153, published on Sept. 25 2013)
SEPT. 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a consortium with two other unnamed companies, South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction won a $3.4b contract to build an ethane treatment plant in Turkmenistan, media reported. The contract, with Turkmengas, demonstrates just how wealthy Turkmenistan has become over recent years.
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — After years of delay and billions of dollars of cost overruns, the consortium developing the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea celebrated its first oil. Kashagan is considered vital to Kazakhstan’s ambition to become a major global oil supplier.
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 14 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rounding off a tour of Central Asia, Chinese president Xi Jinping signed a deal with his Tajik counterpart, Emomali Rakhmon, to build a 400km gas pipeline crossing Tajikistan to China from Turkmenistan. The deal, announced on the side lines of a regional summit in Bishkek, is a major boost for Tajikistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Britain’s Rolls Royce has won a $175m contract to build compressor units to pump gas along a 1,115km pipeline from Kazakhstan to China, media reported quoting Beimbet Shayakhmetov, general director of the Asia Gas Pipeline. The pipeline is one of several being built in Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)