Tag Archives: oil

Kazakh oil company finalises agreement with Vitol

APRIL 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s state-owned oil company, Kazmunaigas, said it finalised an agreement it signed in December with Switzerland-based oil trader Vitol. The deal will allow Vitol to buy oil from Kazmunaigas for an advance payment of up to $3b. The press service of Samruk Kazyna, the sovereign wealth fund that owns Kazmunaigas, said the deal will last for four years.

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(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Oil export ban is illogical, says ex-Kyrgyz official

APRIL 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – For the past six years, there has been an informal ban on petroleum exports from Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan, former president of Kyrgyzstan’s Oil Traders Association, Zhumakadyr Akeneyev, said at a conference in Bishkek. According to him this practice is illogical within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union and it has caused a rise in illegal trading. Kyrgyzstan imports almost all its petroleum products from Russia.

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(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Kazakhstan’s KMG EP ditches dividend payout for the first time

ALMATY, MARCH 31 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — KMG EP, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s state-owned Kazmunaigas, said it will not pay dividends this year for the first time in a decade, reflecting the impact of low oil prices on the company.

KMG EP had paid dividends each year since its IPO on the London Stock Exchange in 2006.

“The board of directors has recommended not to pay dividends on ordinary shares,” the company said in a statement.

“The decision not to pay dividends is caused by a sharp decline in oil prices since the end of 2014, as a result of which the company’s cash flow and operating profit turned negative.”

The board decided to override an earlier recommendation from the company’s independent directors to pay out dividends this year.

KMG EP’s revenues collapsed by 37% in 2015. Oil prices have fallen from around $120/barrel in June 2014 to around $40/barrel now. Earlier this year oil cost less than $30/barrel.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

New refinery opens in Tajikistan

MARCH 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A new refinery opened in Tajikistan’s northern town of Kanibadam, a major boost to the country’s oil products output. Naftrasom, a private company owned by Nosir Usmonov, built the plant with a $3.5m investment. The refinery will have a capacity of 70,000 tonnes. As confirmed by Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon, who attended the inauguration, Tajikistan will import raw materials for the plant, mostly from Kazakhstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

“World’s biggest bribe scandal” involves Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan

ALMATY, MARCH 29 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — Unaoil, a consultancy based in Monaco, channelled millions of dollars of bribes to Emerging Market governments and their companies, including in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, on behalf of major Western firms, an investigation by Australia’s The Age and The Huffington Post said.

The report used data from a massive cache of leaked emails and corporate documents from 2001-2012 to unveil what it described as “the world’s biggest bribe scandal.”

The Ahsani family, Monaco millionaires Ata and his sons Cyrus and Saman, ran Unaoil as a sort of lobbying intermediary. They denied allegations of bribe paying.

“What we do is integrate Western technology with local capability,” Ata Ahsani told the investigation team.

Effectively, the report said of Unaoil: “Its operatives bribe officials in oil-producing nations to help these clients win government-funded projects. The corrupt officials might rig a tender committee. Or leak inside information. Or ensure a contract is awarded without a competitive tender.”

One of Unaoil’s biggest client was US engineering giant Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), a former subsidiary of Halliburton, which operates in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

In both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, KBR allegedly used Unaoil’s services to reach preferential deals and licences, mostly through personal connections and bribes to public officials.

KBR has not commented.

In Kazakhstan, leaked emails showed that Unaoil allegedly liaised with both Eni (codenamed “the spaghetti house”) and Kazmunaigas officials (codenamed “shashlik”) to secure tenders for KBR at the Kashagan offshore oil project.

Italian oil major Eni has not commented.

In Azerbaijan, both KBR and Swiss ABB allegedly won offshore oil contracts through insider information leaked by an in-country lead who had been bribed by Unaoil.

Swiss ABB has not commented.

After the report was published, police in Monaco raided the head- quarters of Unaoil. The FBI, the British Serious Fraud Office and the Australian Federal Police all launched major bribery investigations linked to the case.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Kazakhstan-focused Roxi issues shares

MARCH 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan-focused Roxi Petroleum said it will issue 500,000 new shares on AIM to start trading from April 4. Roxi’s shares fell sharply by 8% on the day of the announcement, to 12p. Hit by low oil prices, Roxi’s shares had picked up in January, matching a rise in global prices.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Kazakhstan-based Nostrum revenues down

MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan-focused Nostrum Oil and Gas posted a 42% fall in revenues in 2015, a consequence of sustained low oil prices and falling production. Last year, Nostrum’s profits were $449m compared to $782m in 2014. Production volumes also fell to 40,391 barrels of oil equivalent per day, a 9% fall on 2014. Nostrum cut its capital expenditure in 2015 for drilling operations by 54% to $58.7m.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

ARETI looks for business in Turkmenistan

MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Igor Makarov, head of Russian company ARETI, previously known as ITERA, met with Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to discuss cooperation in the energy sector. ARETI works in 21 offshore blocks in the Turkmen section of the Caspian Sea through a contract signed in 2009.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Stock market: Nostrum Oil & Gas

APRIL 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nostrum Oil & Gas has suffered a long period of sustained low oil prices, which has hit both its revenues and its stock price.

Nostrum’s revenues fell by a staggering 42% last year, accompanied in the downward trend by lower production volumes.

And, as shown in the graph, Nostrum’s share price has continued to fall, down 48.7% in Q1 2016.

Nostrum, however, remains confident about its long term objectives and pointed out in its full year results that it had cut costs and was investing in its processing capacity.

It made no mention of the failed takeover offer for Tethys Petroleum of last summer, which hit Nostrum’s share price, especially after Tethys started talks with Kazakhstan’s Olisol last November.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Kazakh Pres. sacks energy minister

MARCH 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev sacked former energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik immediately after a parliamentary election. This was part of a government reshuffle that switched several top-bureaucrats in government and local administrations. Mr Shkolnik, the highest-profile government official to be sacked, was replaced by power sector veteran Kanat Bozumbayev.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)