DEC. 6 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — India’s state-run Oil & Gas Corp. (ONGC) will take control of 25% of the Satpayev oil exploration block in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea by February 2011 in return for a $400m investment, news agencies quoted the Kazakh and Indian oil ministers as saying. Kazmunaigas will own 75% of the block.
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(News report from Issue No. 18, published on Dec. 6 2010)
DEC. 1 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led the
United States delegation to the OSCE summit in Kazakhstan and then visited Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan before heading off to Bahrain. In Tashkent, Ms Clinton said Uzbekistan needed to improve its human rights record.
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(News report from Issue No. 18, published on Dec. 6 2010)
DEC. 1 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) —Kazakhstan hosted the first summit of the 56-member Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) since 1999. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev basked in the limelight but delegates failed to agree a consensus to give the organisation the impetus which its critics say it needs.
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(News report from Issue No. 18, published on Dec. 6 2010)
DEC. 6 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s giant Caspian Sea oil field
Kashagan may start production at the end of 2012 slightly ahead of schedule, Kazakh oil minister Sauat Mynbayev said. Kashagan is the world’s biggest oil find in 40 years and key to Kazakhstan’s push to become a major global energy producer.
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(News report from Issue No. 18, published on Dec. 6 2010)
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
NOV. 25 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – The heads of governments of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation member states met in Dushanbe to discuss increasing humanitarian and economic cooperation. They were candid about the results other than to say they had agreed to boost regional aid. Founded in 2001, the SCO consists of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Mongolia, India, Pakistan and Iran hold observer status and attended the meeting.
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NOV. 29 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – WikiLeaks has released 291 out of a promised 251,287 US diplomatic cables.
Of those 291 documents, five originated from Astana, two from Bishkek and four from Ashgabat. Perhaps the most inflammatory revelation is the Feb. 2009 cable from the US ambassador in Bishkek who confronted the Chinese ambassador over Kyrgyz claims that China had offered them $3b to close the US airbase outside Bishkek.
The base is vital for resupplying NATO forces in Afghanistan. According to the leaked cable, the Chinese Ambassador’s denial was unconvincing.
A cable from Jan. 2010 documented a lunch between the U.S. ambassador in Astana and the vice president of Kazmunaigas, Maksat Idenov, who named the men he thought were closest to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
They were Chief of the president’s staff Aslan Musin, the Chief of administration of the president’s office Sarybai Kalmurzayev, foreign minister Kanat Saudabayev, PM Karim Masimov and Mr Nazarbayev’s son-in-law Timur Kulibayev.
A cable from Kazakhstan in April 2009 written by the US ambassador on Kazakh officials said: “they’re stealing directly from the public trough”, another cable detailed the elite’s drinking habits and another cable described a fractious meeting between executives from Chevron and Kazmunaigas.
One cable also gave a detailed account of a meeting with the Chinese ambassador in Astana and his views on Central Asia, China’s energy policy in the region and his description of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili as “not a mature statesman”.
From Ashgabat, a cable described an arms find at the border with Iran.
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(News report from Issue No. 17, published on Nov. 29 2010)
NOV. 29 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – In the wake of WikiLeaks’ publication of confidential files from US Embassies around the world, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton will visit Central Asia this week. She flies to Kazakhstan for an OSCE summit on Dec. 1, 2010 and then visits Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan before flying on to Bahrain.
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(News report from Issue No. 17, published on Nov. 29 2010)
NOV. 26 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh bank Nurbank said it wants to raise $900m in a share issue. In May 2010, the daughter of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Dariga, and her son sold a 56% share in the bank through university professor Sofia Sarsenova. Ms Sarsenova now owns over 70% of the bank.
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(News report from Issue No. 17, published on Nov. 29 2010)
NOV. 18 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan and the US finished decommissioning a nuclear reactor in eastern Kazakhstan and securing highly enriched uranium and plutonium capable of making 775 nuclear weapons. In Georgia, officials said they arrested four people carrying radioactive material which could have been used in a dirty bomb.
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(News report from Issue No. 16, published on Nov. 22 2010)
NOV. 22 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – Control of the Caspian Sea and its resources are worth arguing over.
It is the biggest inland body of water in the world, covering an area about the size of Germany, and dominates trade routes between Europe and Asia. The Caspian Sea also holds vast stocks of sturgeon which produce the lucrative caviar. Most tantalising, though, is the oil potential.
Its reserves are difficult to estimate but the US Energy Information Administration puts them at between 17b and 44b barrels of oil — equivalent to the oil reserves of Qatar at the bottom end of the scale and to the United States at the upper end.
The five states which border the Caspian Sea — Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan — have argued over its ownership for years. On Nov. 18 in Baku the heads of these countries met for their third summit in eight years on how to divide the Caspian Sea and its treasures between them. Once again much was promised but little agreed.
Writing for Asia Times Online, Robert Cutler, a Canada-based academic, commented: “While the framework for a relatively minor security cooperation agreement was endorsed, the summit’s real significance lay in the agreements not reached and documents not signed.”
Before 1991, ownership of the Caspian Sea was less complex as it only needed an agreement between the Soviet Union and Iran. Now, with five countries, it’s far more difficult. Add into the mix the Caspian Sea’s emergence as an energy transit route to Europe and the debates heat up.
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(News report from Issue No. 16, published on Nov. 22 2010)