SEPT. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s minister of economy Kuandyk Bishimbayev said that the country’s public debt is stable and that transfers from the sovereign wealth fund could further reduce it. Mr Bishimbayev said that debt amounted to 11 trillion tenge ($32b), or 24% of the country’s GDP as of July 1. Most of Kazakhstan’s debt is denominated in US dollars.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Dariga Nazarbayeva, the recently- appointed Senator and eldest daughter of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, dismissed rumours regarding her role in a potential succession to her father. At a press conference in Astana, she said she was a proud servant of the country and a member of the presidential team, and that she holds no further ambition. Analysts believe she could be being lined up as a successor.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
ALMATY, SEPT. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ozenmunaigas, a loss- making subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s state-owned energy company KMG EP, was given a discount on the mineral extraction tax (MET), an important lifeline for a firm that employs over 14,000 workers in the oil-dependent west of the country.
In 2016, Ozenmunaigas will pay MET at a rate of 9%, compared to the 13% it paid last year at its Uzen and Karamandybas oil fields.
The company has lobbied the government hard for a tax break, saying that it couldn’t continue operations without what effectively amounts to state support. In 2011, a strike at Ozenmunaigas lasted months and eventually triggered clashes between police and demonstrators which killed at least 16 people. Since then, the government has prioritised keeping Ozenmunaigas in business in order to maintain social harmony.
The fields that Ozenmunaigas operates were established during the Soviet Union. Previously, company officials have said that they can only make a profit if oil prices are above $65/barrel.
This year, prices have rarely been higher than $45/barrel.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rustam Suleimanov, director at Kazakhstan’s state-gas distributor KazTransGas, said that the country is ready to export gas to China from Q4 2016. Over the past few years, Kazakhstan has built up transport capacity to link its gas fields with the main Central Asia- China pipeline, which has pumped gas from Turkmenistan since 2009. Kazakhstan will use Line C of the pipeline, which has a capacity of 20b cubic metres.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
ASTANA, SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — While Western analysts were studying the latest reshuffle of senior Kazakh officials by President Nursultan Nazarbayev to try to decipher what it all means for the succession issue, ordinary Kazakhs were instead saluting the changes as a result of the country’s poor economic health.
A Conway Bulletin correspondent took to the streets in Astana to gauge how the reshuffle was received.
“Changing the PM was a necessary step after failure with land reforms, as the old government was under pressure from people and activists,” said Nurlyayim, a 24-year-old Astana resident.
Earlier this year, thousands of people across Kazakhstan had protested against changes to the land code. Karim Massimov was moved by Mr Nazarbayev from the PM’s position to head of the security services. Most analysts had said that this was an important sign of Mr Nazarbayev’s trust in Mr Massimov. Locals, clearly, saw it differently.
Lyazzat, 29, also said that Mr Massimov had effectively been sacked.
“In my opinion, the president made a major reshuffle because the government led by Mr Massimov failed to elaborate an anti-crisis strategy,” she said.
Rustem, 35, an Astana resident highlighted the move of Imangali Tasmaganbetov from the minister of defence to deputy PM.
“I know Tasmaganbetov as a good politician, who is capable of bringing some positive changes,” he said.
Again this is different from the analysts’ line of thinking who said Mr Tamagambetov had been demoted. Importantly, locals didn’t highlight Dariga Nazarbayeva’s move from deputy PM into the senate as important. Mr Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter is seen as a potential successor.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
ALMATY, SEPT. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan wants to build a new town on its border with China by 2020 to boost the number of people living on its remote fringe, the Presidential Administration said after President Nursultan Nazarbayev toured the chosen site and studied plans.
If it goes to plan, the new city, which will be called Nurkent (Bright Village), and be home to 100,000 people. As well as populating its borders, Nurkent will also sit nicely with Mr Nazarbayev’s plan to build new homes.
It will be situated next to the Khorgos special economic zone and should boost Kazakh involvement in the region which has so far been dominated by China.
Rasul Zhumaly, a well-regarded political observer, told The Conway Bulletin that the government had to build a new town on the border with China.
“Chinese regions bordering us are developing fast which means that Kazakhstan has to match to these tendencies. It is a necessary and important project,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev knows the lynchpin for delivering an ordered succession handover is the Central Election Commission (CEC).
With a trusted loyalist running the CEC — which oversees elections, decides on the eligibility of candidates and approves senators and MPs — Nazarbayev’s chances of delivering a smooth succession are improved.
Kazakhstan’s political class is riven through with different power groups vying for influence. There are rivals to Nazarbayev who are looking for weaknesses to exploit.
Nazarbayev’s appointment of Berik Imashev to head the CEC means that these opponents won’t find any weaknesses there.
Arguably it was the most important appointment in a wider reshuffle earlier his month, although the move of Karim Massimov from PM to head the security services, Dariga Nazarbayeva’s shift into the Senate and Imangali Tasmagambetov’s drift from the defence ministry into the deputy PM’s seat, grabbed the headlines.
Imashev is the definition of an arch-Nazarbayev loyalist. From the late 1990s, the 56-year-old has spent his career serving Nazarbayev, first as one of his advisers and then as deputy speaker of the Senate, deputy chairman of the State Security Council and most recently, from 2012, as justice minister.
It will now be Imashev’s job to ensure that Kazakh elections produce the right results with the right margins of victory that Nazarbayev requires.
And Imashev is well placed to do this. After all, he shares the same interests as Nazarbayev.
Known as a tough, uncompromising operator, Imashev is also married into the First Family. In 2003, his daughter, Aida, married Dariga Nazarbayev’s son Nurali. This makes both Imashev and Dariga, a favourite to succeed her father as president, grandparents to Aida and Nurali’s children. Imashev is, in effect, an extension of the Nazarbayev family.
Imashev’s appointment at the CEC also marks its subjugation as a political tool, although pretensions of independence had always been thin.
Since 2007, Kuandyk Turgankulov, had been head of the CEC. He had spent 11 years effectively training for the post as deputy chairman. By contrast, Imashev has no experience as a CEC official. His appointment is political, and a clever one.
For Nazarbayev securing the loyalty of the CEC was vital. This is now assured.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Guernsey-based oil company Tethys Petroleum never seems to catch a break.
This time last year it had just turned down a takeover offer from Amsterdam-based Nostrum Oil & Gas, also focused on Central Asia. But its financial outlook remained uncertain and it was still on the market for investors.
In the last months of 2015, the obscure Kazakh oil company Olisol came forward with a proposal to buy a large share of Tethys in exchange for much-needed cash.
This appeared to be the salvation that Tethys, buffeted by the slump in oil prices, needed. Tethys saluted the prospective deal as a life-saving opportunity.
But then hiccups in Kazakhstan and legal disputes with its partners in Tajikistan began churning up Tethys’ road to stability.
Now it faces legal prosecution in Kazakhstan and an arbitration in Tajikistan, which could turn ugly.
Plus repeated delays in securing funding from Olisol have put investors and managers under severe stress. This can easily be spotted by looking at the company’s stock price, which jumps and falls at every update.
In mid-August, its stock price nearly doubled in one day, reaching a four-month high, after Tethys announced that it had cleared an important regulatory hurdle in its recapitalisation efforts.
Now, Tethys’ stock price has settled back at 1.5p/share, an average it has kept in the second half of 2016, quite far down from the 64p it traded at in March 2012.
But those were the days of high oil prices and big spending. It’s a very different picture now.
With oil prices still hovering at around $45/barrel, the future looks as uncertain as ever for Tethys.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s energy minister, Kanat Bozumbayev, said that production at the offshore oil field of Kashagan will resume on October 23, three years after its sudden interruption due to leaky pipes. Kashagan, discovered in 2000, is one of the largest finds in the oil industry’s recent history. Its reopening has been touted as crucial to give the Kazakh energy sector the boost it needs to move into the World’s premier division of producers.
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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)
SEPT. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev flew into Samarkand to pay his respects to recently- deceased Islam Karimov, former Uzbek president. At the time of Karimov’s funeral on Sept. 3, Mr Nazarbayev was attending a G20 summit in China. During the visit, Mr Nazarbayev met with Uzbekistan’s acting president Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)