OCT. 31 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP said it would shut down one of Azerbaijan’s biggest oil fields — Central Azeri — for the whole of November for essential repair work. The shutdown will hit Azerbaijan’s oil output which is already under pressure.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
OCT. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s oil production will drop by 2.5% next year because of the continued slump in output from BP’s Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil fields, Reuters reported quoting a source close to the government. ACG is currently Azerbaijan’s largest oil producing field. BP has promised to maintain output but without success.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – By 2020 Kazakhstan aims to be producing 100m tonnes of oil a year, up from 82m tonnes currently, media quoted a senior official as saying. The jump in production is mainly attributed to Kashagan, the giant Caspian Sea oil field, finally starting production. It has been delayed by several years.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Goldman Sachs has said Azerbaijan is partly to blame for falling oil prices by oversupplying the market. West Texas Intermediate is trading at around $79.58 a barrel, its lowest for two years.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Zaur Leshkasheli, a Russian oligarch, is suing investment bank Credit Suisse for not selling his 51 percent stake in the Kyurovdag oil field in Azerbaijan in 2008 for a high enough value, media reported. The court case should expose some of the murkier deal-making around the Caspian Sea.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)
OCT. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – With the price of a barrel of oil falling to a four-year low, the Kazakh government has said it will review its national budget. Kazakhstan’s economy is propped up mainly by oil revenues. With oil revenues falling and with sanctions hitting Russia, Kazakhstan’s disposable income has shrunk.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)
OCT. 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a sort of best-practise benchmark for countries heavily involved in mining or oil production, told Azerbaijan that it needs to undergo a compliance check five months earlier than planned.
EITI chief Clare Short, a former British minister, said that concerns over Azerbaijan’s recent crackdown on civil society had triggered the compliance check.
“The situation facing civil society in Azerbaijan is clearly problematic,” Ms Short wrote in a statement.
“The Board discussed the findings of the fact finding mission and expressed deep concern. The Board hopes that Azerbaijan will open up more space for civil society to make its essential contribution to the EITI as laid down in our Standard.”
International pressure has been increasing on Azerbaijan over its treatment of opposition activists and human rights defenders. The EITI’s statement will be particularly irritating to Azerbaijan, though, as it has previously touted its links to EITI as evidence of its good intentions.
Being ordered to undergo a compliance check before 2015 will be publicly humiliating.
And there is some evidence that the pressure on Azerbaijan is beginning to tell. On Oct. 17, President Ilham Aliyev released four opposition activists as part of a wider amnesty.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)
OCT. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Replacing the pipes running from the Kashagan oil site in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea to the mainland could cost up to $3.6b, Reuters reported quoting an energy ministry document. Kashagan is already the world’s most expensive oil project. Production has been delayed because of leaky gas pipes.
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(News report from Issue No. 204, published on Oct. 15 2014)
BAKU/Azerbaijan, DEC. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Global oil prices have collapsed since the summer, hitting governments, currencies and ordinary people. Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, was built on oil and this slide has, perhaps, been keenest felt here.
Matanat Guliyeva’s husband works for a private oil company. She said: “Salaries have been late for the last two or three months. We have to reduce our budget, as we are uncertain whether my husband’s wage will arrive next week or not.”
Funds directly from oil sales or from taxes generated by oil sales, power Azerbaijan’s state budget. Earlier this month the government passed a budget that increased spending next year but some people in Azerbaijan are now worried about possible economic turmoil triggered by the falling oil prices.
Aytekin Gasimova 18, said she follows news about oil prices closely because an oil price means that her father, who works in local market in Moscow, will also earn less.
“I’m mostly concerned about my tuition fee,” she said. “It seems my family may have difficulties in paying for my education.”
Nijat Qafurov, 43, a bank worker is more optimistic. He said that people’s income will not decrease due to oil prices drop. Instead, he said, if prices keep falling, the government will cut infrastructure projects, not salaries.
And this sense of being able to ride out economic uncertainty rebounded around Baku.
Azer Mammadov, 28, a construction worker, said that the Azerbaijani government has enough money to save the economy.
“I am sure, they have kept some money for such days, and will not let people starve,” he said. “The government will manage it somehow.”
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
OCT. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh government has backed a plan to expand the Tengizchevroil oil project in the west of the country despite cost estimates running higher than expected, Reuters reported. Tengizchevroil, led by Chevron, is one of Kazakhstan’s most successful oil projects.
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(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)