Tag Archives: hydrocarbons

Azerbaijan’s ACG oil output falls

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP said it expects flat oil output this year from its Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil fields off the coast of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea. Last year, ACG produced 31.3m tonnes of oil, slightly down from 31.5m tonnes in 2014. BP also said it plans two rounds of maintenance later this year. ACG is the mainstay of Azerbaijan’s oil production. Its output has been falling.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Uzbekistan to modernise pipelines

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s state-owned gas firm Uztransgaz will invest $506m modernising its pipeline system. Uztransgaz will spend around $266m building a new section of the 10b cubic metres pipeline from the Ferghana valley to Tashkent which was damaged last year after an explosion. Uztransgaz also said it will modernise one of its compressor stations at the Central Asia-Centre export pipeline and build a new one for a total cost of $215m.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Sixth Energy buys stake in Kazakhstan-focused company

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Canadian oil company Sixth Energy Ltd bought a 26.5% stake in Calgary- based Caspian Energy for $320,000. Sixth Energy now owns 60.6% of Caspian Energy, a company active in north-western Kazakhstan. Caspian Energy holds an exclusive licence to explore the North Block, near the Alibekmola, Zhanazhol and Kenkiyak oil fields.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

India snubs Turkmen TAPI pricing

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – India’s oil ministry said in a statement that it will not sign a contract with Turkmenistan that fixes gas prices for supplies coming through the prospective TAPI pipeline. The Indian government said it will not repeat the unprofitable relationship it had with Qatar, which exported liquefied natural gas at a fixed prices. This became costly when oil prices collapsed in 2014 driving down spot prices for gas.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakh company buys into Tethys

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh energy company Olisol acquired control over additional shares of Guernsey-based Tethys Petroleum and is awaiting permission from the Toronto Stock Exchange to reach a 15.8% stake in the company. Under a facility agreement Olisol will also buy additional shares, bringing its ownership in Tethys to around 42%. Oilsol agreed a finance deal with Tethys earlier this year.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakhstan’s gas distributor loses revenue

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s gas distributor Kaz- TransGas Aimak lost around 124b tenge ($365m) in 2015 selling gas on the domestic market because the government insisted that it keeps prices down. “Every year we incur losses because the wholesale price is kept below production and transport cost, but we make up for the losses in other departments, such as transit and exports,” the company’s CEO Ibulla Serdiyev said in a statement. KazTransGas Aimak is a subsidiary of state-owned Kazmunaigas.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Armenia receives Russian PM

MARCH 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian PM Hovik Abrahamyan hinted that a final decision on the long-running negotiations with Russia over gas prices would be made when Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev visits Yerevan next month. Armenia imports all its gas from Russia, one of its most important allies, and has asked for a cut in price to help it cope with an economic downturn. Russia has agreed a cut but not as drastic as Armenia had wanted.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Editorial: Azerbaijan’s pardon

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In the past weeks, European Union representatives had said soothing, nice words to Azerbaijan’s leadership, especially in light of its key participation in the Southern Gas Corridor infrastructure complex, which will bring Caspian Sea gas to Europe by 2019.

Human rights advocates in the West had lobbied loudly for a hardline position regarding the government’s crackdown on political freedoms.

But the EU chose to avoid the critical topic and went on talking business.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev’s decision to free some political prisoners must be read as a payment in kind to the EU’s soft hand on human rights.

While welcoming the gesture, people in Azerbaijan are still waiting for the release of Ilgar Mammadov, Khadija Ismayilova and Intigam Aliyev, three political prisoners that were not pardoned.

By pardoning political prisoners, the government is holding out an olive branch towards the West, more than towards domestic actors. The struggle for them, for independent media and for opposition parties, is not over just yet.

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Editorial from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Kazakhstan’s energy firm schedules Kashagan work

MARCH 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazmunaigas, Kazakhstan’s state- owned energy firm, said work at the Kashagan offshore oil field is on schedule and it expects the field to be ready for production by October 2016. Kazmunaigas’ CEO Sauat Mynbayev said he is still unsure about the volumes that Kashagan will produce in November-December 2016. The consortium developing Kashagan, which includes Kazmunaigas, Shell, Exxon, Total, Eni, Inpex and CNPC, has been replacing damaged pipes.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Uzbek-Chinese JV plans to start production

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek-Chinese joint venture New Silk Road Oil & Gas Company Ltd plans to start production at the Karakul gas condensate fields in Uzbekistan’s Bukhara region by the end of the year. The leadership of the Uzbekneftegaz National Holding Company, which is a co-founder of the joint venture told Trend it will award drilling tenders in late April-early May 2016.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)