Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Tax authorities in Kazakhstan investigate Karachaganak

NOV. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said the tax authorities are investigating the consortium operating the Karachaganak gas and condensate field in the north of the country for unpaid taxes and that the government will seek a new profit sharing scheme. Anglo-Dutch energy company Shell and Italy’s Eni are the field’s operators and largest shareholders with a 29.25% stake each. US-based Chevron (18%), Russia’s Lukoil (13.5%) and state-owned Kazmunaigas (10%) own the rest.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Opec, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan

DEC. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Oil prices shifted up more than 10% after OPEC, the group of oil exporting countries, agreed to reduce output by 1.2m barrels/day starting in January.

This is good news for oil-rich countries across the South Caucasus and Central Asia, as the potential positive impact on oil prices could be sustained for a few months longer.

Throughout 2016, OPEC has repeatedly pledged to decrease output if non-OPEC countries also participated in the cut. In reality, though, the issue at stake was Saudi Arabia’s unwillingness to relinquish market share to Iran, who had just re-emerged from western sanctions and rapidly increased its output.

Now Saudi Arabia will slash 500,000 barrels/day from its output of around 11m barrels/day. Other OPEC countries will cut a total of 700,000 barrels/day and some non- OPEC countries pledged cuts for 600,000 barrels/day. For reference, the total cut would be 20% larger than Kazakhstan’s total oil production in 2016.

In fact, both Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have used the OPEC deals as smokescreens to conceal declining production figures, as some of their projects have become unsustainable at low oil prices.

The output from the giant offshore field of Kashagan, which is three years late in hitting commercial levels of production, is no consolation either for Kazakhstan. Analysts have said that the field, sited in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, is profitable only with oil prices at $100/barrel at a minimum, a figure that is currently not on the horizon.

This means that Kazakhstan’s government will have to wait longer to reap the benefits of its largest oil basin.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Trump and Kazakh President share telephone call

ALMATY, NOV. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a telephone conversation with Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, US President-elect Donald Trump described Kazakhstan as a “fantastic success” and a “miracle”.

A briefing of the telephone conversation released by Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev’s press service said that the two leaders had also agreed to meet up shortly.

“D.Trump stressed that under the leadership of Nursultan Nazarbayev our country over the years of Independence had achieved fantastic success that can be called a ‘miracle’,” the Akorda press release said.

US media later reported that Mr Nazarbayev was the 44th national leader that Mr Trump had spoken to since winning the US election in November. He is also the only leader in the South Caucasus/Central Asia region that he has spoken to.

Importantly for the region, the Akorda press service quoted Mr Trump as saying that he was confident that US-Russia relations can be improved.

“US President-elect underscored that taking into account the results of a telephone conversation with the Russian President Vladimir Putin, he is very optimistic about the prospects of developing cooperation between Washington and Moscow,” the press release said.

Russia is the main economic driver for the region and poor US- Russia relations have been one of the factors that has stumped low regional economic growth, pushing Kazakhstan towards a recession.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Kazakh court sends to jail land protest organisers

ALMATY, NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in western Kazakhstan sentenced the organisers of a land protest earlier this year to five years in prison, triggering outrage from their supporters and human rights workers.

The two men, Max Bokayev and Talgat Ayan, were convicted of inciting social unrest, spreading false information and creating public disorder. They pleaded not guilty and have said that they were just exercising their right to protest against land reforms which the government planned to introduce.

Reports from the courtroom said that supporters of the two men sung the national anthem and shouted “Freedom!” when they were driven away in a police van.

Mihra Rittmann, Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the two men had been jailed for political reasons.

“Jailing Bokayev and Ayan for nothing more than peacefully expressing dissenting views is an outrageous miscarriage of justice,” she said. “Max Bokayev and Talgat Ayan should be freed immediately.”

For the authorities, the jail sentences marked the final clampdown on a unprecedented period of unrest.

It started in April in Atyrau with a local protest organised by Bokayev and Ayan against the government’s reforms which focused on making it easier for foreigners to buy and own land in Kazakhstan.

The protests, though, gathered pace and within a fortnight had spread to major urban centres across the country, worrying Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev. In some cities, protesters fought with riot police. They only stopped when he intervened, repealed the proposed reforms and sacked a handful of government officials.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Kazakhstan introduces new law for broadcasters

DEC. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — New legislation in Kazakhstan will mean that from January 2017 all foreign TV stations planning on broadcasting programmes from the country will have to have a registered office, media quoted Kazakhstan’s information minister, Dauren Abayev, as saying. The move is seen as yet another way for Kazakhstan to increase its control of the media.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Landmark rape case in Kazakhstan challenges stigmas

ALMATY, NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Almaty jailed four men for between eight and 10 years for the rape of woman in a case that was only investigated after the mother of the victim posted a teary, anguished video on the internet asking for help.

Few rape cases are prosecuted in Kazakhstan because the victims are afraid to speak out against their attackers and are also worried about the stigma of being raped.

In this case, the victim was attacked and raped near a police station in the town of Yesik, which has a population of about 40,000 people and is roughly 40km east of Almaty. She said that initially the police were not interested in her complaint, possibly because one of the attackers was the son of a local politician, and allowed the attackers to walk away free. It was only when her mother broadcast her video, touching a nerve with the public, that the authorities showed any interest.

After the verdict a lawyer for the rape victim, who can’t be named for legal reasons, said that the conviction of the four men for rape was an important milestone for Kazakhstan.

“The verdict is of course fair. It means a lot because all women of Kazakhstan were waiting for this verdict, all those who kept silent their whole life about rapes. For ages, centuries, this problem was concealed and finally there is a woman who has openly spoken about it,” lawyer Aiman Umarova told The Conway Bulletin.

“For the country it means a new milestone when the government paid attention to women’s rights, to this social problem, and towards abuse against women.”

While some were celebrating the case as a step towards equality there has been a backlash. The rape victim and her family have had to ask for police protection as they have been receiving death threats from friends and family of the attackers.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

EBRD wants to increase investments in Kazakhstan

NOV. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) pledged to increase its investment plans in Kazakhstan to $1b in 2017. So far in 2016, the EBRD has invested around $900m. At a meeting in Shymkent in Southern Kazakhstan, EBRD country director Janet Heckman also pledged increased investment in the utility sector.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Kazakhstan’s Samruk-Kazyna fails to obtain a review

NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna failed to obtain a review of a US court case that deemed the fund liable for the misrepresentation of BTA Bank bonds sold abroad in 2010-2012. The US court said in February that the Kazakh fund had concealed information regarding dealings with BTA that led to the bank’s default in 2012. The decision was significant because it marked an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act which protects activities by sovereign wealth funds.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Kazakh state cuts petrol controls

NOV. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government said that it would ditch price controls of AI-80 grade petrol from 2017. The move is inline with a policy developed last year. It ditched price controls of AI-92 and AI-94 in September 2015 shortly after a sharp devaluation in the Kazakh tenge. The tenge had taken a nosedive after a peg to the US dollar was scrapped, putting the government’s price controls under major pressure.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)

Stock market: Nostrum Oil & Gas

NOV. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Amsterdam-based Nostrum Oil & Gas posted a decline in revenues it its Q3 report this week, but that didn’t stop investors buying its stock.

Nostrum’s stock price climbed back to November 2015 levels, seemingly dispersing the tough months of 2016, when oil prices plunged to around $30/barrel.

The company successfully cut costs and hopes to contain the drop in production to around 10% this year. Next year, the company will further reduce costs once it starts sending its oil through the KazTransOil pipeline due to be completed in Q2 2017.

“We look forward to realising a significant decrease in transportation costs once the KTO pipeline connection is complete by Q2 next year,” CEO Kai-Uwe Kessel said in a statement.

“Our focus now turns towards the 2017 drilling programme and delivering our major infrastructure project, GTU3, on time and on budget.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)