Tag Archives: hydrocarbons

Stock market: Tethys, Nostrum

JUNE 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Central Asia and South Caucasus-linked stocks fell this week, driven down by lower oil prices. As shown in the table, Tethys and Nostrum shares dropped significantly over the past week after a rather stable month.

Roxi, on the other hand, moved against the tide, gaining 15.3% in one week.

On June 14, the company’s non-executive director Edmund Limerick purchased 500,000 shares at 9.8p/share, for a total of £49,000. Mr Limerick and his wife now own 1.15m shares, or 0.12% of the company, up from 0.07% before the purchase.

The deal pushed up the share price, giving it a boost after weeks of downward pressure.

Kuat Oraziman, CEO, and Kairat Satylganov,CFO and director, own Roxi, which operates in Western Kazakhstan, not far from the massive Tengiz oilfield.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Kazakhstan’s Kashagan to start production in October

JUNE 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s PM Karim Massimov said that Kashagan, the country’s largest oilfield will start production in October 2016. Mr Massimov challenged the consortium members – which include Exxon, Kazmunaigas, Total, Eni, Shell and Inpex – to meet the government’s production plans and resume production at the Caspian Sea field, which had briefly started pumping oil in 2013, before damaged pipes forced its closure.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Turkmenistan fails to pay salaries

JUNE 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Employees of Turkmenistan’s state-owned oil and gas companies said they have not received salaries for months, the opposition Alternative News Turkmenistan website reported. Previous reports had said that state employees had not received salaries and had been forced to accept state bonds instead.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Turkmenistan’s dream pipeline to be ready by 2020

JUNE 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – TAPI, the proposed gas pipeline that will pump gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India, will be ready in 2020, Pakistan’s minister of natural resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told media. This is yet another official voice pushing back the completion date of the project, originally planned for 2019.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Kazakh Minister says Karachaganak talks are friendly

ALMATY, JUNE 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s energy minister Kanat Bozumbayev denied that the government was using multi-billion dollar fines against the consortium operating the Karachaganak gas and condensate field to negotiate more favourable terms to a Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) drawn up in 1997.

Mr Bozumbayev’s comment contradicts statements by shareholders in Karachaganak. Russian oil company Lukoil said in its Q1 report that Kazakhstan’s total claims for the renegotiation of the Karachaganak contract have grown to $1.8b, up from $1.6b it had highlighted in April.

At a press conference in Astana, Mr Bozumbayev tried to shrug off the allegations.

“The reason I do not comment on these issues is that my words are then taken out of context and I read that Kazakhstan wants to sue,” media quoted him as saying. “Kazakhstan is holding friendly negotiations with the shareholders of the Karachaganak project.”

Mr Bozumbayev’s comments are the most clear to date that the Kazakh government is holding direct talks with the Karachaganak partners on a new PSA deal.

Essentially, the Kazakh government wants a greater share of the profits from Karachaganak. Last week, the FT reported that the Kazakh government had rejected a $300m deal to settle the dispute.

The consortium is Eni (29.25%), BG (29.25%), Chevron (18%), Lukoil (13.5%) and Kazmunaigas (10%).

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

Russia’s Gazprom to invest in Kyrgyzstan

JUNE 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev said that state-owned gas company Gazprom will invest around $1.5b in Kyrgyzstan’s energy infrastructure and that it will cancel export duty on oil and oil products. Mr Medvedev made the statement while in Bishkek on an official visit. Oil and petroleum products make up 51.9% of Kyrgyz imports from Russia.

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

Azerbaijan’s energy company profits in Romania

JUNE 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR said its Romanian subsidiary SOCAR Petroleum made a profit in 2015 for the first time since 2011 despite a fall in revenues. SOCAR Petroleum owns several filling stations across Romania. Low oil prices reduced total revenue at SOCAR Petroleum but also gave it a higher profit margin on sales.

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

Azerbaijan’s energy company to boost production

JUNE 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR said it aims to increase oil and gas production at several offshore fields in the Caspian Sea. The company said it will build nine new platforms to drill 81 wells. CEO Rovnag Abdullayev said a new gas platform in the Guneshli block will be the first to be entirely designed and built by SOCAR.

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)f

Petrol prices fall in Armenia

JUNE 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Armenian Statistics Committee said that average petrol prices fell by 1.8% in April compared to the previous month and by 12% compared to the same period in 2015, a sign that deflation pressures have picked up pace. Prices fell marginally across sectors in Armenia in April.

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

Kazakhstan oilfield output to fall

JUNE 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tengizchevroil (TCO), an international consortium operating the Tengiz oilfield in western Kazakhstan, said it will produce 26.4m tonnes of oil in 2016, 2.8% lower than last year. Chevron-led TCO didn’t give a reason for the drop in production. Tengiz is Kazakhstan’s most productive oil field, though, and a drop in its production is likely to have an impact on Kazakh government earnings.

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)