Tag Archives: metals and mining

Stock market: Centerra Gold, KAZ Minerals

SEPT. 11-18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Canadian mining company Centerra Gold saw its stock price on the Toronto Stock Exchange jump over 16% to 7.34 Canadian dollars, after having slumped in the past three weeks, due to the signing of a new exploration licence in British Columbia. Centerra’s main asset, the Kumtor gold mine, is located in Kyrgyzstan. London listed KAZ Minerals, was down 6% to 152 pence due to low copper prices. Kazakhstan-focused Roxi Petroleum gained 4.4% this week, to 8.75 pence.

Kcell, one of Kazakhstan’s largest telecoms, lost 2% on Sept. 17 after its mother company TeliaSonera said it would leave Eurasian markets.

London-listed Bank of Georgia surged 3.9% this week to 1,907 pence. The GDR stock of Georgia’s TBC Bank lost 6.5% this week in London, down to $9.25 per share, though it had fallen to $9.11 on Sept. 14.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Kazakhstan to receive uranium bank investment

SEPT. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – US billionaire businessman Warren Buffett has pledged $50m for Kazakhstan’s new low-enriched uranium bank, media reported quoting The Economist. The concept behind the uranium bank is that it will be able to control the flow of lightly enriched uranium to countries for nuclear power stations.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Centerra Gold pays tax to Kyrgyz government

SEPT. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Toronto-listed Centerra Gold, owner of the Kumtor gold mine in east Kyrgyzstan, has paid 4.3 trillion som (around $65m) in taxes to the Kyrgyz government in the first 8 months of 2015, the ministry of finance said. In 2014, Centerra accounted for 7.4% of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Stock market: KAZ Minerals, Roxi, Centerra

SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The biggest movers on the stock markets were copper producer KAZ Minerals which finished the week up 8%, Roxi Petroleum settled down 12% and Centerra Gold fell by 6.6%.

KAZ Minerals’ share price has fluctuated wildly, hit by China’s economic health and commodity prices. It is now trading at 162 pence, up from around 150 pence at the start of the week. It is sensitive to the value of the tenge which weakened by 10% this week and gave KAZ Minerals a lift.

Roxi Petroleum’s main oil assets are in Kazakhstan.

Its shares fell after it said it was having to downgrade the value of its assets by 28% in line with the fall in the tenge last month.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Stock market: Tethys, Nostrum, KAZ Minerals, TBC Bank

SEPT. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Shares in Toronto- and London listed Tethys Petroleum, whose focus is on oil and gas production and exploration in Central Asia, fell significantly after rival Nostrum on Aug. 28 cut a third off the value of an earlier buyout offer.

Tethys shares in Toronto fell by 20% and in London by 29.3%. Tethys responded by saying that it would honour the exclusivity agreement with Nostrum and then look to other companies for potential buyers.

Nostrum said that it had cut its offer after a new due diligence project showed that the original offer had overvalued the company.

In mining, shares in London-listed KAZ Minerals lost 14.2% of their value between Aug. 28 and Sept. 4, wiping gains from August’s devaluation.

KAZ Minerals used to be called Kazakhmys and is focused on copper production.

The Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs) of TBC Bank, which are traded in London, fell by around 8% over the week to $9.12, the lowest price to date for the bank.

TBC, which is the largest retail bank in Georgia and counts PM Irakli Garibashvili as a director, has been trading its GDRs in London since 2014.

The Georgian economy, like the rest of the region, has been dealing with the fallout from the slowdown in Russia’s economy. Georgia is also vulnerable to Greece, its second largest source of remittances. There was no particular news from TBC that would have pressures its GDRs.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

China to increase investment into Tajikistan’s gold mines

SEPT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Chinese Zijin Mining Group Company pledged more investment into Tajikistan’s gold mines, local media reported. Zijin owns a 75% stake in a joint venture with the Tajik government in the development of the Zarafshan gold mine, the largest gold mine in Tajikistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Kazakh miner and Chinese bank sign $2b deal

SEPT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Eurasian Resources Group, owner of Kazakhstan’s miner ENRC, signed a financing agreement with the China Development Bank for $2b in Kazakhstan, the FT reported. The Kazakh government and a group of businessmen own the Eurasian Resources Group. Marred with corruption allegations, the management of ENRC de-listed from the London Stock Exchange in 2013. The company now works with China on aluminium, iron ore and power projects in Kazakhstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Kazakh shares rally after devaluation

AUG. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Shares in Kazakh copper miner KAZ Minerals, formerly called Kazakhmys, rose by 20% on the London stock exchange immediately after Kazakhstan’s government said that it would allow its tenge currency to free-float. The announcement knocked 23% off the value of the tenge, giving exporters a much needed boost.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 244, published on Aug. 21 2015)

Protesters challenge Kyrgyz labour law changes

JULY 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – BISHKEK — Dozens of people protested in central Bishkek against proposed changes to labour laws which they say will reduce the rights of temporary workers.

The main proposed changes focus on making it easier for foreign companies to hire and fire workers.

The government has argued that it needs to update labour laws to crackdown on the “shadow economy” where employers hire people for short periods but do not pay tax.

Protesters said the amendments would help foreign companies dodge paying social security and over-time.

The mood at the protest, which wound its way through central Bishkek under a cloudless blue sky, was angry but calm.

“We are against slavery,” one of the protesters’ banners said.

Many of the protesters were representatives of workers’ unions attached to mines, including the Kumtor mine in the east of the country owned by Toronto-based Centerra Gold. Kumtor is Kyrgyzstan’s single biggest industrial asset.

After the protest, the government said they would set up a working group to look at the demonstrators’ concerns.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)

Mine blasts in Uzbekistan

JULY 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A blast at a gold mine around 90km southeast of Tashkent has killed 25 people, local media reported. The blast occurred on July 13 at the village of Kochbulak. Reports said the blast was linked to a ownership dispute.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)