Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Kazakh military plane crashes, four people are killed

ALMATY/MARCH 13 (The Bulletin) — A Kazakh military plane crashed at Almaty airport, killing four people, the second deadly plane crash in Kazakhstan in the past 15 months.

Kazakhstan’s emergencies ministry said the plane, a Soviet-designed AN-26, was travelling to Almaty from Nur Sultan, the capital, and crashed in foggy conditions.

“On March 13 at 1725, information was received from the dispatch service of the Almaty airport that at 1722 a military plane AN-26 disappeared from the radars by the Nur-Sultan – Almaty route and made an emergency landing at the airport in Almaty,” the emergencies ministry said in its statement. “According to preliminary data, four people died, two injured were sent to the city clinical hospital No. 4 in Almaty.”

Russian media said that the plane had been operated by the Kazakh border guards and there there were six crew members on board but no passengers.

Kazakhstan has a dubious aviation safety record. On Dec. 26 2019, a Bek Air passenger plane crashed shortly after taking off from Almaty airport, killing 12 people. Seven years earlier, in December 2012, another plane operated by the Kazakh border guards service crashed near Shymkent, killing all 27 people on board.

The AN-26, first manufactured in 1969, is the workhorse of many former Soviet military plane fleets. Until 10 years ago, or so, commercial airlines also flew AN-26s, although most have withdrawn them on safety and reliability concerns.

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— This story was published in issue 475 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 15 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Halyk Bank’s net profit rises

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MARCH 12 (The Bulletin) — Net profit at Kazakhstan’s Halyk bank rose by 5.4% in 2020 to 352.7b tenge ($842m) because of higher income from insurance premiums and earnings on derivatives and securities. Halyk Bank is the largest bank in Kazakhstan and is majority-owned by Dinara Nazarbayeva, the daughter of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev and her husband, Timur Kulibayev. The bank’s performance is considered an important indicator of the state of the Kazakh economy.

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— This story was published in issue 475 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 15 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

BP walks away from three oil projects in Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea

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ALMATY/MARCH 11 (The Bulletin) — Britain’s BP has walked away from three oil and gas projects in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea, saying that it wanted to focus on developing its renewable energy portfolio instead, Kazakhstan’s state-owned Kazmunaigas said (March 11).

BP’s decision to ditch potential projects in the Caspian Sea with Kazmunaigas, which it explained in a letter in October last year, will concern Kazakh officials who still see exploiting oil and gas potential as the quickest and most certain way of pushing economic development forward.

Kazmunaigas said that it was publishing BP’s letter on its website in response to media speculation on why progress on the three hydrocarbon blocks has stalled.

“The decision is related to a revision of the company’s strategy — BP intends to focus its activities on renewable energy sources,” Kazmunaigas wrote.

For the 18 months up to October 2020, BP had been evaluating the potential for developing the Bolshoy Zhambyl, Zhemchuzhnaya and Kalamkas Sea offshore blocks, located near the Karachaganak oil field. Karachaganak is Kazakhstan’s largest post-Soviet oil discovery but it has been beset by cost overruns and production problems.

BP’s exit from the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea follows a decision by Royal Dutch Shell in 2019 to also quit two oil projects because the costs were too high.

During the coronavirus pandemic, oil prices plunged and last year BP said that it wanted to restructure its portfolio and cuts its hydrocarbon base by 40% over the next decade.

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— This story was published in issue 475 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 15 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Coronavirus rips into region’s economies

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MARCH 11 (The Bulletin) — Fresh economic data showed the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economies of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. In Kyrgyzstan, the National Statistics Committee said that the economy was 8.9% smaller in Jan. and February this year compared to the same period in 2020; in Kazakhstan, economy minister Aset Iragliev said that GDP had shrunk by 2.9% in the year to end-Feb; in Azerbaijan, the State Statistics Agency said that the economy was 3.2% smaller now than last year.

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— This story was published in issue 475 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 15 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Azerbaijan’s daily oil production will increase -EIA

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MARCH 11 (The Bulletin) — The US Energy Information Agency (EIA) increased its forecast for Azerbaijan’s oil production to 770,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2021, up 40,000bpd from an earlier forecast. The increase is linked to a relaxation of oil production limits that the Saudi-led oil cartel OPEC and its FSU supporters, Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, introduced last month. Limits had been imposed to push up oil prices. In 2020, during the oil production limits, Azerbaijan had produced 710,000bpd. Oil revenues form the backbone of Azerbaijan’s economy.

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— This story was published in issue 475 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 15 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Coronavirus cases are worsening in Almaty and Nur Sultan

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MARCH 10 (The Bulletin) — The Kazakh authorities said that coronavirus cases were worsening in both Nur Sultan and Almaty as it placed them both on its infection red list. Last week, the authorities had declared that the coronavirus was on the wane across the country. Nur Sultan and Almaty are the only cities in Kazakhstan on the red list.

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— This story was published in issue 475 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 15 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Women in region march against violence

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MARCH 8 (The Bulletin) — Women in Central Asia and the South Caucasus’ biggest cities marched in protests against domestic violence on International Women’s Day. The region, known for its unreformed macho overtones, has one of the worst records in the world for domestic violence. Activists have said the coronavirus lockdowns have exacerbated the issue. Last year the women’s rights march in Bishkek was attacked by masked men. This year it passed off without incident.

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— This story was published in issue 475 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 15 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

OPEC agrees to allow Kazakhstan to increase its oil production quota

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MARCH 5 2021 (The Bulletin) — OPEC, the Saudi Arabia-dominated oil exporting group agreed to allow Kazakhstan to raise its output. OPEC members had cut production to boost oil prices. Now that prices have increased, Brent crude is at around $69/barrel — its highest since the end of 2019, OPEC has loosened restrictions. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, along with Russia, are not OPEC members but had gone along with the cuts. From April, Kazakhstan can boost its output by 20,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), up from its current level of 1,437,000bpd. Azerbaijan, though, has agreed to maintain its output at 595,000 bpd.

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— This story was published in issue 474 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 5 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Kazakhstan wants more foreign investment in its agriculture

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MARCH 2 2021 (The Bulletin) — Kazakhstan wants to attract investments of $9.5b in its agricultural sector by 2025, PM Askar Mamin said during a government meeting. The Kazakh government sees its agricultural sector as an underused resource that could be doing more to attract foreign investors. Some Western companies have already invested in cattle farms to sell beef across Central Asia, where it is growing in popularity, and also to China.

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— This story was published in issue 474 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 5 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Kazakhstan is nearly free of coronavirus, say authorities

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MARCH 2 2021 (The Bulletin) — The authorities in Kazakhstan said that the country was effectively in a self-declared coronavirus infection green zone with no cities reporting data that placed them in the red zone and only five cities or regions — Nur-Sultan, Akmola, West Kazakhstan, Kostanay and Pavlodar — in the yellow zone. Kazakhstan has reported 2,800 deaths linked Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

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— This story was published in issue 474 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 5 2021