MAY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan said that Uzbekistan was still restricting gas supplies to its southern city of Osh. Osh has reportedly been without gas for a few weeks, generating some social tension. Uzbekistan’s Soviet era gas system supplies southern Kyrgyzstan with gas. Relations between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are strained.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – If more evidence was needed of the burgeoning Turkmenistan- China axis, last week provide it.
First, on May 7, Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, sitting rather comically on an oversize gilt throne, officially opened a new gas processing plant at the Bagtyarlyk field in central Turkmenistan.
The field holds an estimated 1.3 trillion cubic metres of gas which it is pumping to China, just like several other fields in Turkmenistan.
China holds exclusive rights to developing Turkmenistan’s onshore gas fields and the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) paid for the new processing plant at Bagtyarlyk.
Turkmenistan’s gas exports have swelled by a fantastic proportion over the past few years. Reuters quoted a CNPC official saying that last year Turkmenistan exported 20 billion cubic metres of gas to China and that this year the amount would grow to 25bcm. He said the aim was to hit 40bcm of gas exports to China in 2016 and 65bcm in 2020 when the giant Galkynbysh field comes on stream.
According to one source, Turkmenistan already supplies a sixth of China’s gas needs.
Mr Berdymukhamedov can claim much credit for this turnaround. His predecessor was more inward looking, more enthralled with Russia. Mr Berdymukhamedov went after China as a client, a strategy which is clearly paying off.
And a few days after opening the new processing plant, Mr Berdymukhamedov was in Beijing on an invitation from the Chinese president. There he was feted as a major ally, given a state welcome and offered a strategic partnership.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Closed since January, Azerbaijan will start sending gas to Russia through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline soon as repair work is almost finished, the head of the state energy company SOCAR, Rovnag Abdullayev, said. Russia and Azerbaijan have rowed over gas supplies through the pipeline.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — They may be neighbours but Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has had little time over the past four years to visit his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rakhmon.
Now though, Mr Berdymukhamedov has been in Dushanbe catching up with Mr Rakhmon and mulling various projects, particularly in the energy and transport sector.
It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to hear of Mr Berdymukhamedov’s first trip to Dushanbe since 2010. The geo-politics of gas has thrown these two countries together.
Turkmenistan has transformed itself into one of China’s biggest gas suppliers. It needs Tajikistan to help it pump gas to its client and pipelines are the main motivating factor behind Mr Berdymukhamedov’s trip to Dushanbe.
The state-owned China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) has already signed a deal with the Tajik authorities to lay part of a new pipeline that will pump gas from Turkmenistan to China. Through the Turkmen state newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan, Mr Berdymukhamedov said work on the Tajik branch of the gas pipeline to China would start shortly.
Media reported the two leaders discussed other issues during Mr Berdymukahmedov’s stay in Dushanbe, security after NATO leaves Afghanistan and regional transport issues, but energy clearly formed the basis of the meeting.
Energy, and China’s thirst for it, sets the diplomatic agenda inside Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
MAY 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon hosted talks with his Turkmen counterpart President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov for the first time in four years. Various deals and documents were signed by both sides, including the start of work on a new gas pipeline.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
MAY 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan has offered India’s state-owned energy company ONGC Videsh a stake in the Abai oil field in the Caspian Sea, media reported. Almost exactly a year ago, Kazakhstan blocked a deal by India to buy a stake in the giant Kashagan oil field. India has been looking to Kazakhstan to boost its oil reserves.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
MAY 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran and Turkmenistan are set to re-negotiate their goods-for-gas deal, Iranian media reported quoting Iran’s energy minister Bijan Namdar Zanganesh. Turkmenistan has been supplying gas to Iran for years in return for goods such as home appliances and other electrical products that Iran manufactures.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
APRIL 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Under pressure from persistent delays and setbacks, the North Caspian Operating Company building the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea sacked Pierre Offan, its chairman and managing director. Officials have said Kashagan may be closed for another two years while leaky pipes are replaced.
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(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)
APRIL 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a surprising, and perhaps risky, move, Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov ordered the authorities to scrap a monthly handout of petrol to car owners.
Mr Berdymukhamedov had introduced the subsidy in 2008 to ease a massive increase in the price of fuel. Mr Berdymukhamedov’s eccentric predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov had set the price of petrol at an unrealistic 2 cents per litre. Mr Berdymukhamedov wanted to raise the price to 22 cents.
Reuters quoted Turkmenistan’s state media as saying that the abolition of the fuel allowance was needed to “help sustain the growth of the national economy, achieve the efficient use of oil products and ensure their orderly converting to cash on the domestic market”.
In other words, Mr Berdymukhamedov decided that it was time to wean the population off the free fuel allowance.
Turkmenistan can, after all, afford the petrol giveaway. It has grown rich from energy exports. These exports are mainly gas. It produces roughly 10m tonnes of crude oil a year, most of which it refines into oil products locally.
Salaries are low in Turkmenistan. The sudden cut in fuel subsidies may impact people and increase resentment.
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(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)
APRIL 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Union is considering extending the proposed TANAP-TAP gas pipeline from Azerbaijan from its current endpoint in Italy to France and Spain, the Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported quoting a European Commission official. TANAP-TAP is supposed to be completed by 2019.
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(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)