Tag Archives: hydrocarbons

Turkmen president to fly to Berlin

AUG. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was due to visit German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, a rare European trip for Turkmenistan’s leader. The visit is likely to focus on potential gas supplies to Europe from Turkmenistan but human rights groups have been piling pressure on Ms Merkel to bring up their various human rights grievances with Mr Berdymukhamedov.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

KMG EP minority shareholders defeat Kazakhstan’s oil and gas plans

AUG. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — After months of increasingly bitter rows, minority shareholders at London-traded KMG EP voted against selling their stakes in the company to its parent Kazakhstan’s state owned Kazmunaigas. Kazmunaigas had been looking to boost its 58% stake in the company, one of its few assets which have been doing relatively well during an increasingly tough oil-linked economic downturn. KMG EP mainly owns downstream operations which earn US dollars. These have been more profitable than many of KMG’s upstream operations.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 292, published on Aug. 12 2016)

Greece says Azerbaijan’s SOCAR deal to buy gas pipelines will happen in September

JULY 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Italy’s Snam could make an offer to buy 17% of Greek gas distributor DESFA by the end of September, salvaging plans by Azerbaijan’s SOCAR to buy Greece’s pipeline network.

Earlier this month, SOCAR officials had suggested the deal, which is considered vital for Azerbaijani aspirations to supply gas to Europe, was off because a lower-than-expected

price rise by the Greece government for consumers had undermined its value.

But Stergios Pitsiorlas, chairman of the state Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund, told Bloomberg that the Snam-SOCAR tandem will buy a 66% share in DESFA.

Snam declined to comment.

SOCAR officials flew into Athens this week to discuss the deal. News reports from both Greece and Azerbaijan have called the negotiations ‘tense’.

In 2013, SOCAR won a bid to buy 66% of DESFA, Greece’s gas distributor.

The deal was later frozen by the European Commission, citing 2009 regulation which stops integration between gas suppliers and distributors.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

KazTransOil revenues drop

JULY 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s state-owned oil pipeline operator KazTransOil said its revenues fell by 1.2% to 96b tenge ($273m) in H1 2016, compared to the same period last year. KazTransOil, part of the Kazmunaigas group of companies, also said that it transported 10% less oil in H1 2016.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Dispute threatens Kazakh refinery company’s sale of Romanian refinery

JULY 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A legal battle between Kazakhstan’s KMG International and the Roma- nian government risks stalling a $680m deal to sell a majority stake in the Kazakh company’s refinery to China’s CEFC.

KMG International, formerly known as Rompetrol, is preparing to lodge a lawsuit against the Romanian government over the seizure in May of its assets, according to the FT.

The Romanian government has said the Petromidia refinery, the largest in the country, was illegally privatised in the early 2000s before Kazmunaigas bought Rompetrol.

KMG International has now submitted a legal note to the Romanian government that will escalate the dispute.

“Romania is using its governmental power to undermine that transaction and re-nationalise the assets,” the FT quoted KMG International as saying in a letter to the government.

KMG International had to delay finalising the deal with CEFC, which in December agreed a $680m fee to buy 51% of the refinery.

Robert Cutler, Senior Researcher at the Institute of European Studies at Carleton University, Montreal, said that Romania was looking to block the sale.

“Kazakhstan is about to find out what it is like to be on the receiving end of ‘resource nationalism’, which it [Kazakhstan] has successfully used against foreign investors over the last decade,” he told The Conway Bulletin.

This delay and the asset freeze has angered officials at both KMG International and Kazmunaigas, its parent company.

Senior company officials have said that they will take legal action if the refinery sale is delayed.

Romanian investigators have focused on recovering cash from an allegedly illegal privatisation of the refinery in 2003, when the late Dinu Patriciu bought Petromidia for $760m. In 2007, Patriciu sold Rompetrol, which controlled Petromidia, to Kazmunaigas for $1.6b.

In the following years, the government acquired an 18% stake in the refinery.

Now, analysts say, the government might be looking to renationalise the refinery, an important and lucrative asset for Romania.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

PetroKazakhstan’s production shrinks in H1

JULY 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-traded upstream oil company KMG EP said its H1 2016 production shrank by 0.7% to 6.1m tonnes of oil. In particular, the company said that production slowed significantly at PetroKazakhstan’s operations in central Kazakhstan. KMG EP owns a 33% stake in PetroKazakhstan, while China’s CNPC owns the rest. KMG EP is a subsidiary of state-owned energy company Kazmunaigas.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

EBRD considers stake rise in Azerbaijan

JULY 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it will postpone its decision to increase its stake in Holcim Azerbaijan, a cement company. The EBRD already owns a 10% stake in the company. Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim (66%), Germany’s Holcim (10%) and other private investors (14%) own the rest of the company. The EBRD said it will wait until September to take a decision.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Georgia sign gas deal with Iran

JULY 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran signed an agreement with Georgia to export gas via Armenia, Iranian official media reported. In February, Georgia had said that gas supplies from Iran would only be considered in the long term, as Azerbaijan was able to export enough gas to meet Georgia’s growing demands. With Azerbaijan’s production declining and Iran’s export to Armenia due to increase, Georgia could now find another supplier in Iran.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Gas tariff rise in Kazakhstan

JULY 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh anti-monopoly agency approved a 39% increase in the top rate it can charge for pumping gas through its pipeline network to 1,769 tenge/1,000 cubic metres ($5), in a move that will impact domestic and industrial gas prices. The new tariff ceiling will come into effect on Sept. 1 and will be valid until 2020. Gas price rises are a sensitive issue. Governments across the region have been raising prices slowly, moving away from Soviet subsidies. This, though, has frustrated people and triggered anti government protests.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Turkish police arrests CEO of Azerbaijan’s state energy company for links to Gulen movement

AUG 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish authorities have arrested Sadettin Korkut, former CEO of Petkim, an Azerbaijan-owned refinery on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, in what media said was part of a purge of people linked to exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen (July 28).

Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR dismissed the claim, saying that the arrest was linked to a spat with another employee of SOCAR Turkey Enerji, its Turkish subsidiary.

Mr Korkut had resigned as CEO, a position he had held for four years, the day before he was arrested. Twenty-seven other employees of SOCAR’s Turkish subsidiary, which operates the Petkim refinery, were also sacked at the same time.

Turkish media immediately linked the arrest and the sackings to the Gulenist movement, which they dub a terrorist network.

“Around 200 workers from Petkim and related companies were sacked due to their alleged ties to the Gulenist Terror Organisation (FETO),” the Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Around 60,000 public sector employees and dozens of journalists and businessmen were arrested in Turkey in the aftermath of an attempted military coup on July 15. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Mr Gulen of masterminding the coup from his exile in the US.

Azerbaijan is one of Turkey’s strongest allies. It backed the arrest.

“SOCAR’s management believes that Turkey will become stronger after these difficult days. We will continue to operate and invest in Turkey with all of our energy,” Vagif Aliyev, CEO of SOCAR Turkey Enerji said in a statement.

SOCAR Turkey Enerji and SOCAR Turkey Petrokimiya own a majority stake in Petkim.

Anar Mammadov, head of SOCAR’s Greek subsidiary, has been appointed new CEO of Petkim.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)