Tag Archives: hydrocarbons

Enagas partners with Azerbaijan on TAP pipeline

SEPT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Spanish natural gas provider Enagas bought a 16% stake in the TAP pipeline that will pump gas from the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea to central Europe.

The purchase of the shares, a 10% stake from France’s Total and a 6% stake from Germany’s E.ON underline how important European countries consider the project to be.

Belgium’s Fluxys also increased its stake to 19%. The other shareholders in TAP are BP, Norway’s Statoil and Azerbaijani energy company SOCAR all with 20% of the project. Swiss energy company Axpo also owns 5% of TAP.

Reuters quoted Kjetil Tungland, TAP’s managing director.

“The TAP joint venture has always been open to new strategic partners,” he said.

“Enagas … will help to enhance TAP’s strategic position as a truly European project that will transport a new source of gas to the continent’s energy markets.”

The pipeline is scheduled for completion in 2018. European countries consider it an essential piece of infrastructure development to diversify their gas deliveries away from Russia, through which most of its gas was being delivered.

The plan is for TAP to run 870km from the Shah Deniz II field in the Caspian Sea to the Turkey-Greece border. There it will connected to another pipeline called TANAP which will pump the gas through the Balkans and across to Italy. From Italy the gas can be re-distributed across Europe.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)

Turkmen gas to Iran will rise

SEPT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Despite statements earlier this year to the contrary, Iran will increase gas exports from Turkmenistan to make up for a shortfall in its own production.

Reuters quoted the Shana Iranian news agency as quoting Hamid-Reza Araqi, Iran’s oil minister, as saying, that imports would rise in accordance to a long term contract between the two countries.

“Iran has a long-term contract with Turkmenistan, based on which the volume of gas exports increases,” he said.

Western sanctions aims at hampering Iran’s alleged development of its nuclear weapons programme have also slowed its gas production, mainly based in the south of the country. And so it has looked to neighbouring Turkmenistan to make up the shortfall. Over the past few years, Turkmenistan has supplied 90% of Iran’s gas imports.

News that Turkmenistan will further increase its gas exports to Iran will again cement its position as one of the region’s leading gas suppliers.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)

Kazakh President snubs green energy

SEPT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev hinted at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that he may not be as enamoured with green energy as he has suggested.

This is important because Kazakhstan’s government has spent time and money promoting itself as a standard bearer for Green Energy, including devoting much of the sales pitch of its centrepiece event EXPO-2017 in Astana to it.

“I personally do not believe in alternative energy, such as wind, and solar,” media quoted Mr Nazarbayev as saying after meeting Mr Putin in Atyrau on the Caspian Sea coast.

“I think the shale euphoria also does not make much sense. Oil and gas are our main horses and we do not need to be afraid that they are fossil fuels.”

This view may not be that surprising, afterall the economies of both Kazakhstan and Russia are based on oil and gas exports.

Even so, Kazakhstan has given the impression it wants to move on from its reliance on oil and gas for its wealth.

Throughout Kazakhstan’s cities advertise EXPO-2017 with posters carrying the slogan ‘The Energy of the Future’ against a background of a green valley filled with wind turbines and solar panels.

Kazakhstan’s future energy policy is further complicated because it has agreed a deal with Russia to build a new nuclear power station.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)

Production delay at Azerbaijan’s Absheron field

SEPT. 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – French energy company Total will start oil production at its Absheron site in the Caspian Sea in 2021, Reuters quoted Azerbaijani energy minister Natiq Aliyev as saying, a year later than stated. Total owns 40% of Absheron, Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR also owns 40% and GDF Suez owns 20%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 201, published on Sept. 24 2014)

Rising Turkmen oil exports via BTC

SEPT. 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan increased oil exports through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline by 70% in the first eight months of the year compared to the same period in 2013, media quoted the national statistics agency as saying. BTC pumps oil from the Caspian Sea to Turkey and then on to Europe.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 201, published on Sept. 24 2014)

Petrol running out in Kazakhstan

SEPT. 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Aktobe region in northwest Kazakhstan is on the brink of running out of petrol, the regional government’s business head Bagzhan Tlegenov said. Supplies of petrol have been particularly tight since August because of low refinery capacity in Kazakhstan and falling imports from Russia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 201, published on Sept. 24 2014)

Turkmenistan increases oil production

SEPT. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan increased its oil products production by nearly 2% in the first half of the year, media reported quoting official statistics. Although a marginal increase it is important because Central Asia is experience a general shortage of oil products.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 201, published on Sept. 24 2014)

Fuel shortage to stay in Kazakhstan

SEPT. 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s deputy energy minister, Uzakbai Karabalin, has said fuel shortage will continue despite government attempts to buy extra petrol from Azerbaijan and other neighbours, media reported. He said a third of Kazakhstan’s petrol came from Russia which was dealing with an economic slowdown.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 200, published on Sept. 17 2014)

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR to complete Greek deal

SEPT. 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR is expected to complete the deal to buy the Greek state gas operator DESFA by the end of this month, SOCAR head Rovnag Abdullayev said. SOCAR agreed to buy a 66% stake in DESFA in 2013. The EU is currently considering it.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 200, published on Sept.17 2014)

Ukraine looks for oil from Azerbaijan

SEPT. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan may be about to play an unforeseen, but important, role in Ukraine’s civil war.

Virtually unnoticed by the media, Ukraine’s coal and energy minister, Yuriy Proban, visited Baku for an unofficial meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart. He was, basically, asking for help from Azerbaijan.

Ukraine’s economy is a mess. It had been reliant on coal mining from the Donbass region but with the civil war centred on Donbass, it is now limping along.

It had also earned a substantial fee for being a transit country for oil and gas supplies from Russia to Europe. That too has dried up, meaning that it both has to generate cash from elsewhere and also buy in oil and petrol.

According to analysts, only about 20% of Ukraine’s refining capacity is currently in use.

And this where Azerbaijan, could in theory, come in.

Mr Probin said that he was in Baku partially to ask for Azerbaijan to halp make up the shortfall.

“We could quite quickly increase the processed amounts if Azerbaijan has the available resources,” Russian news agency ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying, referring to the volumes of refined oil produced in Ukraine.

For Azerbaijan, there are two main issues to consider before potentially increasing supplies to Ukraine. Firstly, how to get any oil shipments there, possibly via Georgia’s Black Sea port of Batumi, and secondly how would Russia react? Azerbaijan-Russia relations are already strained. Supplying Ukraine with oil, may strain them further.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)