Tag Archives: oil

Azerbaijan issues $1b Eurobond for gas pipelines

MARCH 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s finance ministry issued a $1b 10-year Eurobond to fund the Southern Gas Corridor company which is building an energy transport route between the Caspian Sea and Europe.

The initial yield on the debt was 7%.

Analysts have said that the rare debt issue for such a high-profile

Azerbaijani energy project is another indication of just how heavily the economic downturn has impacted finances.

The Southern Gas Corridor is a state-owned company in charge of the design and construction of pipelines that will send gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe by 2019. These include TANAP, which will run across Turkey and TAP, which will link Greece to Italy.

The EU considers the project to be a priority for its energy security strategy as it reduces its reliance on Russia for gas. Azerbaijan is hoping to give its gas sector a major lift with the EU as a key client.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Smuggling ring busts targeting Georgian oil

MARCH 23 2016, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian authorities broke up an oil smuggling operation near the village of Ruisi in central Georgia, highlighting the lack of security for infrastructures across the South Caucasus.

Smugglers were siphoning off crude oil from the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline, a BP-operated 800km-long pipeline that transports oil from Azerbaijan to the Georgian Black Sea terminal of Supsa.

Smugglers had installed a parallel pipeline that branched off the main trunk and fed trucks.

Major infrastructure projects in the South Caucasus often appear fragile and vulnerable. In November, a fire at a data centre shut down the internet in Azerbaijan.

In 2011, an elderly woman damaged a major fibre- optic cable while digging for copper in a rural Georgian village, cutting internet access in Armenia.

Last year, too, rebels from the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia, which has proclaimed independence, grabbed control of a section of the Baku-Supsa pipeline.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakh Kashagan field to reach commercial production next year

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Halyk Bank effectively poured cold water over Kazakh officials’ forecasts that the giant Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea would meet commercial production of 75,000 barrels/day this year. Instead, Halyk Bank said that Kashagan would be operating effectively only by the end of 2017. Kashagan is vital for Kazakh oil output.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Azerbaijan’s ACG oil output falls

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP said it expects flat oil output this year from its Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil fields off the coast of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea. Last year, ACG produced 31.3m tonnes of oil, slightly down from 31.5m tonnes in 2014. BP also said it plans two rounds of maintenance later this year. ACG is the mainstay of Azerbaijan’s oil production. Its output has been falling.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Sixth Energy buys stake in Kazakhstan-focused company

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Canadian oil company Sixth Energy Ltd bought a 26.5% stake in Calgary- based Caspian Energy for $320,000. Sixth Energy now owns 60.6% of Caspian Energy, a company active in north-western Kazakhstan. Caspian Energy holds an exclusive licence to explore the North Block, near the Alibekmola, Zhanazhol and Kenkiyak oil fields.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakh company buys into Tethys

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh energy company Olisol acquired control over additional shares of Guernsey-based Tethys Petroleum and is awaiting permission from the Toronto Stock Exchange to reach a 15.8% stake in the company. Under a facility agreement Olisol will also buy additional shares, bringing its ownership in Tethys to around 42%. Oilsol agreed a finance deal with Tethys earlier this year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakhstan’s energy firm schedules Kashagan work

MARCH 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazmunaigas, Kazakhstan’s state- owned energy firm, said work at the Kashagan offshore oil field is on schedule and it expects the field to be ready for production by October 2016. Kazmunaigas’ CEO Sauat Mynbayev said he is still unsure about the volumes that Kashagan will produce in November-December 2016. The consortium developing Kashagan, which includes Kazmunaigas, Shell, Exxon, Total, Eni, Inpex and CNPC, has been replacing damaged pipes.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Stock market: Roxi Petroleum, KAZ Minerals, Centerra

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan-focused oil company Roxi Petroleum hit the headlines with a daily increase in its share price of over 10%, although the company did not publish updates regarding its operations at the BNG contract area in Western Kazakhstan.

Still rallying on positive results and an uptake in commodity prices, KAZ Minerals also fared well. The Motley Fool financial website said that, together with Glencore and Fresnillo, KAZ Minerals “could be a great long- term play on a mining sector recovery.”

Centerra Gold, a Kyrgyzstan-based Canadian miner, performed poorly again, and the company blames it on the uncertainty regarding negotiations the ownership structure with the Kyrgyz government.

“The uncertainty about renegotiating the future ownership profile of the Kumtor mine with the Kyrgyz government weighed heavily on the stock,” Mining Weekly quoted CEO Scott Perry as saying.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Qatar oil meetings miss Kazakhstan

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan has not been invited to a meeting in Qatar set for April 17 where major world oil suppliers are due to discuss freezing output levels at their current rates, energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik said. The apparent snub for the FSU’s second biggest oil producer underlines its role as an oil price taker rather than an oil price maker. Oil producing nations are trying to coordinate a response to drag oil prices off record lows.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Zenith signs agreement with Azerbaijan’s SOCAR

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A subsidiary of Canadian oil company Zenith Energy signed a production sharing agreement with Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR to develop three onshore oil fields. Zenith Aran Oil and SOCAR had started negotiations last year. Zenith will have an 80% share in the Muradkhanli, Jafarli and Zardab fields for the next 25 years. SOCAR will retain the remaining 20%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)