SEPT. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Britain’s Rolls Royce has won a $175m contract to build compressor units to pump gas along a 1,115km pipeline from Kazakhstan to China, media reported quoting Beimbet Shayakhmetov, general director of the Asia Gas Pipeline. The pipeline is one of several being built in Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A steel plant owned by ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, in Kazakhstan has introduced a shorter working week because of a drop in demand for its products, local media quoted Reuters as reporting. ArcelorMittal’s plant at Temirtau, near Karaganda, has seen demand drop because of Western sanctions against Iran, a major client.
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — When Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced the Kashagan oil field discovery in 2000 he described a future for Kazakhstan as one of the great oil producing nations.
Exploiting Kasahagan, he said, would mean Kazakhstan becoming one of the top five oil exporters in the world.
Now, after a decade of delays and a five-fold rise in the cost of the project to $50b because of complex technical problems and squabbling between the partners, Kashagan has finally delivered its first oil.
But that doesn’t mean Kazakhstan has now propelled itself into the Premier League of global oil exporters.
Kashagan may have estimated recoverable reserves of 13b barrels of oil and be touted as the largest oil find in 30 years but production, initially at least, will be modest before rising to 350,000 barrels per day.
This will rise to a mightier 1.5m barrels per day but it is still down on the 3m that was touted at first.
Even so, despite the problems, Kashagan will shape oil production in Kazakhstan for years.
The consortium developing Kashagan is made up of ENI, Shell, Total, ExxonMobil, Kazmunaigas (all owning 16.8% stakes), CNPC (8.4%) and Inpex (7.6%).
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — KazPost has started to close dozens of branches in villages with less than 2,000 inhabitants, media reported. As well as delivering mail, KazPost provides vital services, such as paying out pensions and salaries and taking in tax and utilities bills. KazPost announced the closures this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 9 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan plans to simplify the registration process for migrant workers by the end of 2013, media quoted Serik Sainov, head of the interior ministry’s migration department, as saying. Thousands of foreigners work illegally in Kazakhstan. Simplifying registration rules should benefit both businesses and individuals.
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(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)
SEPT. 7 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — On a tour of Central Asia, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana. Alongside other deals, they finalised a deal for China to buy an 8.33% stake in Kashagan, a Caspian Sea oil project, for $5b. China beat India for the stake in Kazakhstan’s biggest energy project.
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(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)
SEPT. 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Xi Jinping, China’s president, toured Central Asia’s capitals meeting leaders and sealing business deals. In Turkmenistan Mr Xi inaugurated the start of production at Galkynysh, the world’s second biggest gas field, and in Kazakhstan he confirmed a $5b deal to buy an 8.33% share in the Kashagan oil field.
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(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)
SEPT. 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A drop in savings held in Kazakh tenge in July showed people were losing confidence in Kazakhstan’s currency, the respected kapital.kz said. Central Bank data showed 350b tenge was withdrawn from bank accounts in July, reducing the proportion of savings held in tenge to about 61%, down from 66%.
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(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)
SEPT. 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Corruption and a poorly educated workforce are the biggest problems to doing business in Kazakhstan, according to executives interviewed in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitive Index. The index ranked Kazakhstan at 50th position, up one place from last year, out of 148 countries.
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(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)
SEPT. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Central Bank will invest 20% of a $120m state-managed pension fund in foreign stock markets over the next five years, Grigory Marchenko, head of the Central Bank, told Reuters in an interview. Kazakhstan aims to create the pension fund through the enforced merger of 10 private funds by the end of 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)