NOV. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan does not have a complaint against the Karachaganak Petroleum Operating (KPO), which operates the oil and gas field, and does not intend to levy a fine against it, energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik said. His intervention was intended to smack down a report by Bloomberg that the energy ministry was preparing a £2b fine against KPO.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are having to brace themselves for a tough 2016. Oil prices are expected to stay low and output is likely to drop too.
Oil exports from Azerbaijan were down by 0.4% in Jan.-Oct. 2015 compared to last year, due to a decline in oil production, according to a source quoted by Reuters, a continuation of steady trend at its major oil field ACG.
BP is under pressure to stem the drop, and has said that it is on target to achieve this. Now an estimate from the US-based Energy
Information Administration appears to back this up. It said Azerbaijan is likely to maintain this year’s average of 870,000 barrels/day, or even more, in the first half of 2016.
But OPEC, a club of oil exporting countries that does not include Azerbaijan, disagrees.
It predicted oil output of 820,000 barrels/day for 2016, a 6% drop compared to 2015.
“Lower prices are likely to accelerate declines in Azerbaijan’s production in 2016 compared to 2015,” OPEC said in a report.
And Kazakhstan is also sending worrying signals.
Yerbolat Dossayev, minister of economy, said the government cut Kazakhstan’s oil output projection for 2015 by 1.5m tonnes to 79m tonnes, a 2.3% fall. OPEC agreed.
“With no new project startups lined up for next year, declining rates are likely to step up in 2016,” it said in its monthly report.
Analysts expect Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, which cannot influence oil prices, to produce and export at maximum capacity, while cutting down on investment. Earning hard currency from exports is top of the agenda for Central Asia and South Caucasus countries.
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(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — BP said it expects to maintain last year’s production levels at Azeri Chirag-Guneshli (ACG), the largest oil field complex in Azerbaijan, despite analysts’ predictions that output would fall.
BP, which owns a 35.8% stake in ACG, has been under pressure to ensure that Azerbaijan’s most important oil project doesn’t reduce its output any further.
“We expect that the production on the results of 2015 at the block will not be lower than last year. Current production figures are ahead of the forecasted ones,” Gordon Birrell, BP regional director, told reporters .
Analysts had predicted a drop of 3% in Azerbaijan’s country-wide oil output in 2015 compared to 2014.
In H1 2015, production at ACG declined by 2.3% to 641,000 barrels/day compared to the same period in 2014.
This means that the third quarter report, due in the next few weeks, will have to show an increase in production to cancel out the Q1 drop.
Maintenance work halted operations at West Azeri in May and at Chirag in September. BP said it would carry out further work at Chirag on Nov. 10 for 25 days.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — As the Bulletin reports on its front page, Georgia Healthcare Group (GHG) listed on the London Stock Exchange with an initial share price of 170p on Nov. 9. The company listed 29% of its shares, valuing the company around £218m ($331m). By Friday its shares had dropped to 181p.
Oil and commodities companies lost ground on the London stock market after Brent and copper prices fell by 6% and 4.5% this week.
Linked to this fall in the price of Brent crude futures, Kazakhstan-focused Nostrum Oil & Gas shares were down 16% closing at 367.5p. Nostrum recorded an 8% fall on Thursday, placing its shares among the worst performers on the FTSE 250.
Cooper producer KAZ Minerals, formerly known as Kazakhmys, faired worse. Its shares fell by 20% over the week, closing at 80p.
Tethys Petroleum shares jumped by 53% on Monday following Olisol’s letter of intent to acquire its stakes, but finished the week down to 4.25p.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Canadian oil and gas company Tethys Petroleum said it has entered into a non-binding agreement worth around $34m with Kazakhstan-based Olisol Investments, allowing it to refinance its debt and inject cash into exploration projects.
Tethys operates oil and gas projects in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Georgia.
Olisol upped its previous offer per share from 0.16 to 0.17 Canadian dollars, for a total of 25.5m Canadian dollars. In addition, Olisol will lend Tethys $15m. Last month, an Olisol statement said that it had worked with Tethys since 2009 and that it wanted to created a fully integrated oil and gas company in Kazakhstan.
Tethys, which was close to reaching a deal with London-listed Nostrum Oil & Gas earlier in September and has also attracted interest from AGR Energy, a company owned by the Kazakh Assaubayev family, said it was happy with the deal.
“We are pleased to have reached conditional agreement with Olisol on a potentially transformational refinancing,” the company statement quoted Tethy’s CEO, John Bell, as saying.
Analysts, though, were cautious on the real value of the deal.
“There is a lot of movement around Tethys, with offers being made and later being pulled. I would remain cautious of the whole situation, until a deal is signed,” Stephane Foucaud, managing director at First- Energy Capital investment firm, told the Bulletin.
“It is still unclear what kind of securities will Olisol use as a warranty for its interim financing. In these deals debt can often be used as a weapon.”
Perhaps most importantly for Tethys shareholders is that the deal spares it from working with AGR Energy and the Assaubayev family which has a mixed reputation in Kazakh business circles.
Tethys’ share price surged in London and Toronto on the day of the announcement, although it lost ground later.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
OCT. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an intergovernmental organisation set up to improve transparency in mining and oil sectors, published its first report on Tajikistan which the authors said shone some light on the murky Tajik extractive sector.
Anti-corruption lobby groups have previously criticised the Tajik government for siphoning off cash from its metals sector and while the report was considered a step forward for transparency in Tajikistan, there were still many blank spots.
And the authors of the report made this clear.
“Three of the 14 companies in the EITI Report are partially state owned. Considerable details related to these companies are missing from the report due to the currently weak government systems for recording all company payments,” they wrote in the EITI report.
Tajikistan had been supposed to present its first report to the EITI in February, a deadline it missed.
A presentation on the report will be made in Dushanbe on Nov. 25.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-listed Roxi Petroleum said technical issues in one of its main new wells in the BNG area in western Kazakhstan have slowed production. It didn’t give any more details. In a trading update, Roxi also said it would drill a new well nearby for $8.5m to speed up the beginning of operations. Roxi showed stagnant operational results in H1 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Stock markets saw commodities-focused companies lose terrain this week, despite a brief surge in oil prices above $50/barrel on Tuesday.
Kazakhstan-focused oil company Roxi Petroleum lost 16% in one week closing at 7.88p, perhaps driven down by technical issues slowing down its drilling operations at the BNG contract area in the western part of the country.
After peaking at 122.4p on Tuesday, mining company KAZ Minerals shares were down 8.5% to 105.7p on Friday. KAZ Minerals used to be called Kazakhmys.
In Toronto, Centerra Gold shares lost 3.5% to 7.15 Canadian dollars, continuing a 3-week slump following debates on the formation of a new government in Kyrgyzstan. The Kumtor gold mine in Kyrgyzstan is Centerra’s main asset and the company is a major taxpayer in the country. Centerra has said, though, that production at Centerra would be down this year on earlier forecasts.
A new government has now been formed in Kyrgyzstan, hopefully giving Centerra a stable partner to work with.
Shares in Bank of Georgia were down 4.5% to £19.11 on Friday.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The EBRD doubled Azerbaijan’s economic growth predictions to 3% this year, an upgrade that will come as a relief for the the government which has been trying to cope with an economic downturn. It is reliant on oil as its main foreign currency earner. Oil prices have fallen 50% in the past 18 months.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran’s oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, said trade between Iran and Turkmenistan would boom as the country opened up and made more deals with its neighbours in Central Asia. Local media quoted him as saying that Turkmen- Iranian trade measured $4b last year. He said bilateral trade worth $60b was possible within a decade.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)