APRIL 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s state-owned nuclear company Kazatomprom signed a deal with France’s Areva to strengthen their partnership, an agreement which they said would see them working together for another 20 years. The two companies have worked together since 1996 on their Katco JV.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
NOV. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government has cancelled plans to build either a thermal or nuclear power station despite saying for the past decade that an upgrade to its power generating system was vital.
At a press briefing earlier this month in Astana, Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said that, despite predictions of the opposite, Kazakhstan actually now has a surplus of power.
“We see no deficit within the next seven years, so we see no [need to build] new facilities such as a nuclear power plant within the next seven years,” he said. This is an important statement for two reasons. Firstly Bozumbayev is doing future generations of Kazakhs a disservice. Secondly he is not being honest with this current generation of Kazakhs.
Both the short-termism and the dishonesty are worrying. Kazakhstan needs more power. Just ask people living in Almaty who have to deal with an increasing number of brownouts. As the country has modernised and grown wealthier, electricity consumption has soared. World Bank data showed that in 2013, Kazakhstan’s per capita electricity consumption was 4,892 kilowatt hours, up from a post-Soviet low in 1999 of 2,838 kilowatt hours.
At the same time, Kazakhstan’s population has grown from just under 15m people in 1999 to just over 17m people in 2015.
Kazakhstan prevaricated for years with various suitors over building a new nuclear power station, its Soviet-era nuclear power station had been decommissioned in 2001, but earlier this year said it had scrapped the idea.
In September, Kazakhstan and Korea’s Samsung also finally admitted that its mothballed $2.5b plan to build a coal-fired power station on the shores of Lake Balkhash to feed electricity to Almaty had also been scrapped.
And here’s the hard truth, the real reason that Kazakh officials said they don’t need a new power station is that Kazakhstan’s finances are currently not up to funding the construction of one.
Last year, Samsung Engineering CEO Park Jung-heum said he had mothballed the Balkhash thermal power project “because of an issue with the Kazakhstan government over the guaranteed purchase of the power to be produced from the project.”
Power generation plans in Kazakhstan have become the latest victim of the economic downturn. The government should admit this and lay plans to boost production as soon as they can afford to.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
NOV. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s energy minister Kanat Bozumbayev said that the government will not consider proposals to build any new power plants for the next seven years because the country’s energy balance is stable. The issue of building a nuclear or coal-fired power plant has been on and off for years in Kazakhstan. It appears that an economic downturn, which has drained the government’s reserves, has finally snuffed out these plans altogether.
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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)
SEPT. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia will decide within the next two years what to replace the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant with when they decommission it in 2026, media reported quoting government officials. Metsamor, which lies 30km from Yerevan is controversial. It supplies 40% of Armenia’s power but the EU and the US want it closed down because they say it is a safety risk.
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(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)
JULY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s Statistics Committee said that electricity production shrank by 1.9% in Jan.-May 2016 compared to the same period last year. Overall, the Metsamor nuclear power plant produced more than a third of Armenia’s 3.2b kWh output. Importantly, hydropower stations surpassed thermal power plants in their share of total electricity output for the first time.
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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
APRIL 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The World Bank approved a $30m loan to aid Armenia’s troubled power sector. The aim of the project is to give credit to state- owned power generation companies which have been losing money and rung up millions of dollars in debt. The Armenian Nuclear Power Plant (ANPP) has accumulated a deficit of $104m. Power generation, and how to pay for electricity, are sensitive subjects in the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)
APRIL 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Armenian government said it would bring forward repair works at the Metsamor nuclear power plant in 2017 after it agreed with Georgia to increase electricity imports. Areg Galstayan, deputy energy minister, said repairs, previously scheduled for November 2017 will be carried out six months earlier, in May. By bringing the repairs forward by six months, Armenia is showing it is confident that Georgia can supplement its power supply.
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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)
MARCH 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s electricity production grew by almost 9% in February compared to the same period last year, pushed up again by the proliferation of small hydropower stations. For the first two months of 2016, electricity generation grew by 7% to 1.3b kWh. The Metsamor nuclear power plant accounted for 42% of the total power generation in the country. Power generation has become big business in the South Caucasus, with countries trying to meet a jump in demand.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
DEC. 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh government has scrapped plans to build a new nuclear power station, despite years of speculation over its location, size and financing, media reported quoting energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik. Mr Shkolnik said the country was producing enough power from other sources, although the government’s shrinking budget probably played a role in the decision.
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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
OCT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s Metsamor nuclear power plant will shut down in two stages in 2017-2018 as part of a planned modernisation of the plant, the Armenian government said. The ministry of energy had planned one 6- month long closure in 2017, but pressure on electricity prices have forced the government to split the period into two phases.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)