Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Kazakh businessman buys mall

MAY 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh businessman Kairat Boranbayev said he had bought a 50% share in Capital Partners, a holding company that owns Almaty’s Esentai Tower and Mall. Mr Boranbayev, who also owns the Kairat football club and the McDonald’s franchise in Kazakhstan, jumped to 15th place in Forbes’ ranking of Kazakhstan’s richest people this year, with a net worth of $350m. His daughter, Alima, married Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s grandson, Aisultan, in 2013.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Kazakh PM approves land reform commission

MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh PM Karim Massimov approved the members of a newly- established commission that will discuss reform of the land code. Bakhtyzhan Sagintayev, vice PM will head the commission which includes politicians, businessmen and members of civil society. The proposed amendments to the land code triggered weeks of protests throughout Kazakhstan and forced Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev to delay introducing them.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Danish company wins Kazakhstan’s oil contract

MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Denmark’s oil service company Blue Water Shipping said it had won a contract worth around $350m to build 15 new module carrying vessels for Kazakhstan’s main oil producer, Tengizchevroil. Norway’s VARD and Dubai-registered Topaz Energy & Marine will be part of the Blue Water-led consortium, which will deliver the 15 vessels by the end of 2021.

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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Kazakhstan announces plans on green energy

MAY 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a statement to the UN, Kazakhstan announced plans to generate 50% of its electricity from alternative energy sources by 2050. This is an ambitious target. In 2014, renewable sources accounted for just 0.5% of production. The Kazakh government often lays out grandiose plans for its economic development. Green energy is the dominant theme of EXPO 2017, a major exhibition scheduled for next year in Astana.

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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Kazakh kommertsbank’s chairman wants all KKB

MAY 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazkommertsbank’s chairman, Kenes Rakishev, said he is ready to buy out minority shareholders offering 211 tenge ($0.63) per share. The deal, which is expected to be concluded by the end of the year, will cost $145m and will give Mr Rakishev full ownership of the bank. Directly and indirectly, Mr Rakishev now owns 71% of Kazkommertsbank.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Romania seizes Kazakhstan’s Kazmunaigas refinery

ALMATY, MAY 6 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) – Prosecutors in Romania ordered the seizure of the Petromidia refinery part-owned by a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s Kazmunaigas as they re-opened an investigation into its privatisation in the 2000s.

The seizure of the refinery comes only a few days after China’s CEFC China Energy Company Limited completed a $680m deal to buy a 51% stake in KMG International, the Kazmunaigas subsidiary that owns the Petromidia refinery. Kazmunaigas has been looking to sell off assets and raise cash to help it through a sustained economic downturn.

Rompetrol was renamed KMG International in 2014, although the Rompetrol brand still lingers.

Romanian investigators have been focused on recovering cash they say is owed to it after a deal by the late Dinu Patriciu to buy the Petromidia refinery in 2003 from the state for $760m through Rompetrol, which he owned. He bought the Petromidia refinery from the government not with cash but with a bond.

In 2007, Patriciu sold Rompetrol and its daughter companies to Kazmunaigas for $1.6b.

When in 2010 Rompetrol’s bonds reached maturity, Kazmunaigas refused to pay the government the $600m coupon. Instead it gave the Romanian government a 45% stake in Rompetrol. This was reduced to 18% in 2014 after the Romanian government agreed to sell Kazakhstan a 27% stake for $200m.

KMG International said it had not been involved in any wrongdoing and that this legal case could damage its business plans in Romania.

“These are new developments which may have significant negative impact on KMG’s strategic objectives and development plans in Romania,” the press service said in a statement.

The company later also said it is also ready to take legal action.

“We will analyse the facts about the charges and to what extent such deeds justify the seizure of company assets. If we find that the seizure is not justified, we will challenge those seizures,” Gheorghe Albu, a lawyer for KMG International lawyer, said.

Petromidia is Romania’s largest refinery and is situated near Năvodari on the Black Sea coast.

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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Iran swaps oil plans with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan

MAY 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran’s deputy oil minister, Amir Hossein Zamaninia said his country plans to swap oil and gas with Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Currently, Iran relies solely on Turkmen supplies for its northern provinces. In the past few years, Iran has signed short-term swaps with Kazakhstan and Russia. The new plan aims to turn these short-term deals into long-term agreements. Central Asian states, especially Kazakhstan, have been keen to pull Iran into their sphere of economic influence since most sanctions were lifted earlier this year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Glencore to sell Kazakh mine

MAY 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Switzerland-based miner Glencore said it is considering selling its share in the Vasilkovskoye gold mine in Kazakhstan for around $2b. Glencore owns 70% of Kazzinc, the company that operates Vasilkovskoye which is located 300 km north-west of Astana. According to unnamed sources quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the buyers could be Chinese investors. China has been looking to buy Kazakh gold.

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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Kazakhstan explains power nexus

APRIL 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan has sold 218m kWh of electricity to Kyrgyzstan in 2016 at a price of 9 tenge ($0.03) per kWh from the Ekibastuz power station, the Kazakh government said. Kazakhstan earned around $6m from the sale. Kyrgyzstan is a net importer of electricity from neighbouring countries due to chronic water shortages in recent years. Last year, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan exported around 400m kWh to Kyrgyzstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Editorial: Nazarbayev and protests

MAY 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a choreographed government meeting, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev blamed everyone but himself for the turmoil that proposed amendments to the land code have brought to the country.

The presidential press service posted parts of the government meeting on Facebook showing an angry Mr Nazarbayev.

He dressed down the ministers of economy and agriculture for having failed to explain the land reform to the population. With a patronising tone, Mr Nazarbayev said the population had been unable to understand the reform and needed to be spoon-fed details.

Once more, Mr Nazarbayev wanted to portray himself as the strong leader, the one who understands the people.

Nobody should be fooled. These were, and still are, Mr Nazarbayev’s reforms.

Everyone in Kazakhstan knows that for a bill to pass, especially an important one such as the land code, Mr Nazarbayev’s input is crucial.

He misjudged the appetite of the people to accept the land reforms.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)