Tag Archives: hydrocarbons

Kazakh President supports ENI

JUNE 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan and Italy demonstrated their strong links by agreeing a series of deals at a meeting between Italian PM Matteo Renzi and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the Borovoye resort outside Astana.

Despite criticism of its handling of the Kashagan oil field development in the Caspian Sea, Italian energy company ENI was the main beneficiary of the deals.

Kashagan was supposed to be pumping out oil and projecting Kazakhstan into the top ranks of global oil producers. Instead, it lies idle while repairs are made.

Alongside Kazakh energy company KazMunaiGaz, ENI will explore a new site in the Caspian Sea. It will also team up with Italian engineer Finmeccanica to build a new shipyard at Kuryk on the Caspian Sea coast. Italian truck maker Iveco also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kazakh ministry of transport.

Domenico Sermesi, a partner at Almaty-based Adala Consulting, said the deals were good news.

“After the hiccups of last summer, this agreement, together with the document on the military corridor, is a sign of a renewed partnership,” he said.

Reference to a military corridor is to NATO forces withdrawing from Afghanistan through Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan and Italy certainly have a close relationship and Mr Nazarbayev emphasised this when he said that he was “confident that ENI’s activities in Kazakhstan will continue to be successful”.

Of course there will be strings attached to this backing. Kazakhstan will expect support for its application to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and also to win a seat at the UN Security Council in 2017/18.

Regardless, the Italian stock market liked Mr Renzi’s visit to Kazakhstan. ENI’s shares rose 1.66% afterwards in an otherwise flat market.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Kazakhstan approved Russian oil transit to China

JUNE 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s lower house of parliament ratified a deal that will increase the amount of Russian oil pumped through Kazakh pipelines to China to 10m tonnes per year from 7m tonnes per year. The deal highlights Kazakhstan’s role as a oil transporter, and not just a producer, to China.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Turkmenistan holds one of biggest gas reserves

JUNE 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In 2013, Turkmenistan produced 62.3b cubic metres of gas, only a slight increase on the previous year, BP said in its annual review of the world’s energy setup. It also said that after Russia, Iran and Qatar, Turkmenistan holds the largest gas reserves in the world.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

South Korean leader visits Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan

JUNE 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – South Korean president Park Geun-hye started a six day trip to Central Asia by visiting Tashkent.

There Ms Guen-hye pledged to increase cooperation in gas and solar power sector.

This was just the first stage in an important Central Asia trip for the South Korean leader. Ms Guen-hye now travels to Astana and then to Ashgabat laying down a serious marker in the region.

Central Asia is a natural region for South Korea to look to carve out an overseas trade foothold. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ensured that this was the case.

In the 1930s, worried about their loyalty, Stalin moved hundreds of thousands of Koreans living in the east of the Soviet Union to Central Asia. Most settled around Tashkent or Almaty.

Now both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have large Korean minorities. Many ethnic Koreans are involved in business and some in politics. There are Korean restaurants in cities in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and transport links with Seoul are well-established.

Ms Geun-hye is looking to leverage these ties to ensure that South Korea is able to tap into the region’s energy reserves as well as putting Korean companies in a good position to do business.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Turkey gives Azerbaijan’s energy company loan

JUNE 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Days after buying an extra 10% stake in Azerbaijan’s biggest gas project, Turkey agreed a $3.3b credit line for a subsidiary of SOCAR, the Azerbaijani state-owned energy company. The loan, which cements the two countries’ alliance, will be spent on building an oil refinery in Turkey.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on June 11 2014)

Turkey wants to transport Turkmen gas

JUNE 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) -Turkey plans to increase the amount of gas from Turkmenistan that it transports to Europe, media quoted Turkish President Abdullah Gul as saying at the end of a trip to Ankara by Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. Turkmenistan has become a major gas producer over the past few years.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

Malaysia’s PM visits Turkmenistan

JUNE 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Malaysia’s PM Datuk Razak visited Ashgabat for talks with Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov on how to develop Islamic banking in the Central Asian state.

This is significant because Malaysia is the home of Islamic banking and also because it shows that Turkmenistan may be serious about developing out another section of its economy. Turkmenistan’s new found international status is built on gas exports.

Mr Razak also clearly had an agenda for boosting the presence of Malaysia’s state-owned energy company Petronas in Turkmenistan. Mr Razak said that Petronas had already invested about $8b in Turkmenistan’s energy sector.

“The Turkmenistan President is keen that Malaysia becomes a partner in all areas. This is because his confidence in Malaysia is very high,” Mr Razak said before flying back to Malaysia. “Malaysia has become a priority nation for Turkmenistan.”

Maybe but currently trade outside the oil and gas sector between Malaysia and Turkmenistan is light. Media reported that bilateral trade amounted to just $33m last year and that only 940 Malaysian tourists visited Turkmenistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on June 11 2014)

RWE to evaluate Azerbaijan’s oil and gas field

JUNE 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – After years of delays, German energy company RWE said it would finally start an evaluation of the Nakhchivan gas and oil deposit in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea.

The announcement is another boost for Azerbaijan’s energy sector which has seen billions of dollars of investments over the past couple of years.

Part of the attractiveness of Azerbaijan’s energy sector is its relative stability and the extra pipeline infrastructure that is being built to send supplies west to Europe.

The Azerbaijani government has been pushing RWE to move ahead with plans to develop the Nakhchivan deposit since the two sides signed a production sharing agreement in 2011.

“We hope to close everything within the next months. . . and to drill our well in the beginning of the next year.” Martin Wellens, the new projects development head at RWE told journalists at an energy conference in Baku.

SOCAR, the Azerbaijani state-owned energy company, had been getting increasingly frustrated with RWE. Media had reported that SOCAR would suspend its product sharing agreement with RWE unless it hurried up its development of Nakhchivan.

Soviet geologists first discovered Nakhchivan in the 1960s but it was not developed as there were more accessible and easier-to-drill wells that could be tapped first.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on June 11 2014)

Kazakh court upheld fine on Kashagan

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An appeals court in Atyrau upheld an earlier $730m fine against the consortium developing the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian for environmental damage. The fine was originally imposed for excessive gas flaring after an accident in September 2013.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

BP oil output in Azerbaijan falls, again

JUNE 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Oil output is still falling at the Azeri, Chirag and Guneshli fields (ACG). A source at SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company, said oil output dropped 2.4% in the first five months of 2014 compared to the same period in 2013. BP, the operator, had promised to stem the drop at ACG.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on June 11 2014)