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)
ALMATY, MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Canadian gold miner Alhambra Resources said it was seeking damages against Kazakhstan’s government, via the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, for the bankruptcy of its Kazakh subsidiary.
This is the second major arbitration case against Kazakhstan in the past few months. In January, the Kazakh government had to pay $25m compensation to Estonian builder Windoor after a court in Stockholm ruled it had broken a contract in 2012 to build a conference centre for its foreign ministry.
A sharp economic downturn has hit Kazakhstan hard and forced the government to cut budgets and projects, undermining, to some extent, its credibility as a client.
The company accused the Kazakh government of acting in an “unfair and inequitable” way against both Alhambra and its subsidiary Saga Creek.
Alhambra said the Kazakh government had broken its terms of contract with Saga Creek, imposed excessive fines on it and withheld mining licences.
“This conduct by the Government has frustrated Alhambra’s investment activities in Kazakhstan, drained the Corporation’s resources and culminated in the bankruptcy of Saga Creek,” it said in a statement. Kazakhstan has not commented.
In 2011, a high court in the Akmola region of northwest Kazakhstan cancelled a $1.6m tax bill that local government had sent to Alhambra.
The new arbitration, the company said, had been initiated after a Kazakh court on March 3 upheld the a bankruptcy order imposed on Alhambra’s subsidiary in December.
Saga Creek and Alhambra own a 25-year licence to mine the Uzboy gold field in north Kazakhstan near the border with Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
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)
MARCH 20/21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – ALMATY — Kazakhstan’s ruling Nur Otan party won a parliamentary election with 82% of the vote, although Western monitors said that the vote was not fair.
The result is a near mirror image of a parliamentary election in 2012. Nur Otan scored 81% of the vote four years ago and the quasi-opposition parties Ak Zhol and the People’s Communist Party, which are both pro-President Nazarbayev, polled 7% in 2012 and 2016.
European vote monitors said that the election was broadly unfair although, importantly there had been some progress on previous elections.
Marietta Tidei, the head of the OSCE’s monitoring mission for the Kazakh election, said that Kazakhstan still had some way to go to meet what Europe would consider to be a free and democratic election.
“The ruling party had a clear advantage over others in these elections and, while the parties were generally able to campaign freely, genuine political choice remains insufficient,” she said.
Europe’s main vote monitoring watchdog, the OSCE’s ODHIR, has never judged an election in Kazakhstan to be free and fair.
For the Kazakh authorities, though, the election was important as it imposes more stability on the country just as the economy appears to worsen.
Still, a Conway Bulletin correspondent in Almaty said it was difficult finding people who voted for Nur Otan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s party. Turn out in Almaty was only 34%, the lowest in the country.
Nurbek didn’t vote. His comments on why he didn’t think it was worth voting in the election were broadly representative.
“I don’t think there is any point in voting because my vote is not really going to change anything,” he said.
“Elections are just a play to pretend we have some sort of democracy which we obviously don’t.”
Still, somedid vote and they chose Nur Otan.
“We voted for Nur Otan. There were many parties but with Nur Otan our future is certain,” said a couple who declined to be named as they strolled through Almaty.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s flagship carrier Air Astana said it is exploring opening a route to the US by the beginning of 2017. Air Astana, which is half owned by the Kazakh government and half by BAE Systems, is also looking to open flights to Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
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)
MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Government ministries in Kazakhstan have banned smart phones from buildings to try and stop official documents being leaked. The ban, apparently, was to try and stop officials from photographing documents with their smart phone and then sending them on to people using WhatsApp. Kazakhstan has launched a number of drives over the past few years to try and professionalise its civil service.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Italian retailer Les Copains, luxury handbags, opened its first shop in Kazakhstan. The new boutique will be located in the Esentai Mall, Almaty’s luxury shopping centre. Earlier, the company had opened shops in Moscow. Les Copains said it is looking to expand further in Asia and in the former Soviet Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Central Bank left interest rates unchanged at 17% to give the tenge currency extra support. At its monthly policy-setting meeting, the Central Bank said that supporting the currency was a higher priority than reducing the cost of borrowing. Analysts had argued that the interest rate was set too high.
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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)
MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Appeal Court cut a jail sentence handed down to former PM Serik Akhmetov, jailed last year for corruption, to eight years from10 years. Akhmetov was jailed last year in a high-profile case. He was PM for 18 months until April 2014 and was then defence minister. The case drew attention to Kazakhstan’s reputation for corruption.
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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)