JUNE 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Highlighting Turkmenistan’s increasing importance as an energy supplier, Israel sent its first ambassador to Ashgabat, media reported. The arrival of Ruevan Daniel, a former agent of the Israeli intelligence services Mossad, as Israel’s ambassador may also sour Turkmenistan’s relations with neighbour Iran.
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(News report from Issue No. 141, published on July 1 2013)
JUNE 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — What has felt like a titanic battle between two competing proposals to link a gas transit route from the Caspian Sea to Europe is finally over.
At a press conference on June 28, the consortium of energy companies developing the Shah Deniz gas field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea said they had chosen the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) to send their gas to Europe.
TAP route will carry the gas across Turkey, Greece and Albania and then under the Adriatic Sea to Italy. It is headed by Norway’s Statoil, Switzerland’s AXPO and E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany.
TAP’s victory means defeat for Nabucco West, its main rival headed by Austria’s OMV.
The decision, though, was hardly a surprise. While Nabucco West’s bid has slowly lost momentum its fate was sealed earlier this month when SOCAR, the Azerbaijani energy company, bought a 66% stake in DESFA, Greece’s natural gas distributor.
Now TAP has to be built. It will run for 520km and cost $2.2b. Once it’s up and running, Europe’s reliance on Russia for gas supplies will be reduced and Azerbaijan’s importance to Europe will be increased,
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(News report from Issue No. 141, published on July 1 2013)
JUNE 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Romanian PM Victor Ponta visited his Kazakh counterpart Serik Akhmetov in Astana to discuss the countries’ growing economic cooperation. Kazakh state energy company Kazmunaigas owns Rompetrol which controls an oil terminal on the Black Sea. Romania wants Kazakhstan to increase its use of the oil terminal.
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(News report from Issue No. 141, published on July 1 2013)
JUNE 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s energy company SOCAR has agreed to buy a 66% stake in Greek gas distributor DESFA for $540m, media reported. The deal highlights cash-rich Azerbaijan’s appetite for foreign assets and should also make the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, part of a gas route from the Caspian Sea to Europe, more viable.
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(News report from Issue No. 140, published on June 24 2013)
JUNE 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) and France’s Total agreed a deal with London and Toronto-listed Tethys Petroleum to develop an oil and gas site in Tajikistan. The deal gives each company a third stake in the Bokhtar project. Developing Bokhtar successfully could transform Tajikistan’s economic future.
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(News report from Issue No. 140, published on June 24 2013)
JUNE 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia’s Gazprom has said it wants to buy a 20% stake in Armenia’s ArmRosGazprom that it doesn’t yet own. Armenia’s government currently owns the outstanding 20% stake in ArmRosGazprom. ArmRosGazprom is Armenia’s monopoly gas distributor and the move would give Russia control over Armenian energy consumption.
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(News report from Issue No. 140, published on June 24 2013)
JUNE 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The figures in the BP Statistical Review of World Energy can be dry but the stories behind the figures are important.
The 2013 edition is an important barometer for the energy-centric economies in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. The most telling figure for the region in this year’s edition of the review was that oil consumption in Kazakhstan grew by over 10% in 2012.
This is a large jump. In the countries covered in the review only Israel’s oil consumption increased at a higher rate. The global rise in oil consumption in 2012 was 0.9%.
The increase reflects Kazakhstan’s emergence from a sharp economic retraction triggered by the global crisis of 2008/9 when oil consumption fell.
Last year Kazakhstan, with a population of 17m, consumed 265,000 barrels of oil per day. By comparison, Uzbekistan, population 29.5m, consumed 82,000 barrels/day and Turkmenistan, population 5m, consumed 100,000 barrels/day.
Across the Caspian Sea, BP reported that Azerbaijan, population 9.3m, consumed 93,000 barrels of oil per day, a jump of 5.4%. This rise in Azerbaijan’s oil consumption, although not as big as Kazakhstan’s leap, still shows an increase in economic activity.
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(News report from Issue No. 139, published on June 17 2013)
MAY 30 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — On a trip to Ashgabat, Turkish President Abdullah Gul signed a framework deal with his Turkmen counterpart Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to transport gas from Turkmenistan to Europe. Turkmenistan is looking for additional transport routes to pump gas to clients in Europe, China and the Middle East.
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(News report from Issue No. 137, published on June 3 2013)
MAY 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Austria’s OMV has agreed to sell a 9% stake in the company planning to build the proposed Nabucco gas pipeline from the Shah Deniz II gas field in Azerbaijan to Europe. France’s GDF Suez agreed to buy the stake for an undisclosed amount. The consortium developing Shah Deniz II will decide whether to use Nabucco or a rival to deliver gas to Europe.
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(News report from Issue No. 137, published on June 3 2013)
MAY 22 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government will make a final decision on whether to buy the 8.2% stake in the Kashagan Caspian Sea oil field by July 2, energy minister Sauat Mynbayev said. ConocoPhillips, the US oil company, is selling the stake which could fetch up to $5b. Both India and China have expressed interest in a deal.
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(News report from Issue No. 136, published on May 27 2013)