Tag Archives: pipelines

India buys into Azerbaijani energy projects

MARCH 30 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — As if waking from a deep slumber and noticing nearby riches to grab, India is slowly buying up energy resources in the Caspian Sea region.

On March 29, Sudhir Vasudeva, head of India’s state-owned energy company ONGC, said that its subsidiary ONGC Videsh had completed the purchase of a 2.72% stake in Azerbaijan’s Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields in the Caspian Sea and a 2.36% stake in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

ONGC Videsh bought the stakes from the US oil company Hess for $1b. The deal was announced last year. This deal is important as it marks India’s entry into the Caspian Sea energy race.

India needs more energy and has announced an ambitious expansion plan to match; Central Asia and South Caucasus region is an obvious place to expand in to.

But India is playing catch-up. Chinese, Russian and Western energy companies are already entrenched in the region.

That said, India has unveiled impressive plans. It is pushing to build a pipeline from gas fields in Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to south Asia and it has agreed a $5b deal to buy an 8.4% stake in Kashagan, in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea, from US’s Conoco Phillip.

Kazakhstan has yet to approve the Kashagan deal but India’s Caspian Sea intentions are clear.

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(News report from Issue No. 130, published on April 5 2013)

Azerbaijan approves India buy

JAN. 31 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s government approved the purchase by India’s state-owned energy company ONGC Videsh, of a 2.72% stake in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil fields and a 2.36% stake in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline from the US’s Hess for $1b. Both ACG and BTC are Azerbaijani flagship projects.

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(News report from Issue No. 122, published on Feb. 1 2013)

Kyrgyzstan hosts SCO meeting

DEC. 4 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – PMs of members of the Russia, China lead Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which focuses on Central Asia, met in Bishkek. China’s Wen Jiabao also met privately with Kyrgyz PM, Zhantoro Satybaldiyev. They discussed China’s future investment in Kyrgyzstan, and a potential trans Central Asia pipeline.

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(News report from Issue No. 116, published on Dec. 7 2012)

Azerbaijan’s TANAP gets more stakeholders

NOV. 7 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP, Statoil and Total have bought stakes in the proposed TANAP pipeline that will pump gas from Azerbaijan to Turkey, media reported. The ultimate market is the EU which has been trying to reduce its dependency on Russia for gas supplies. BP and Statoil will each buy 12% stakes in TANAP and Total will buy 5%.

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(News report from Issue No. 112, published on Nov. 9 2012)

Turkmenistan announces TAPI start date

OCT. 14 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s minister for oil and gas, Kakageldy Abdullayev, told reporters at an energy forum that construction of the TAPI pipeline would begin in 2017. TAPI aims to pump gas from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to markets in Pakistan and India. Bangladesh has again stated it would like to join the project.

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(News report from Issue No. 109, published on Oct. 19 2012)

Azerbaijan resumes gas supply to Turkey

OCT. 9 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP announced that gas supplies from the Shah Deniz field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea to Turkey had resumed after a blast on the South Caucasus pipeline disabled it on Oct. 4. CORRECTION: In last week’s bulletin, we mistakenly named the damaged gas pipeline as the Baku-Tbilsi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. BTC is, of course, an oil pipeline. Apologies.

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(News report from Issue No. 108, published on Oct. 12 2012)

Pipeline blast disables Azerbaijan’s gas pump

OCT. 4 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – An explosion disabled the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline which pumps gas from the Shah Deniz fields in the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea to Turkey, media reported. This is the second explosion in the Turkish part of the BTC pipeline, a route critical for European gas supplies, this year.

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(News report from Issue No. 107, published on Oct. 5 2012)

BP and Azerbaijani state company to fund pipeline

AUG. 9 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP, Total and Socar, the Azerbaijani state energy company, agreed to fund a pipeline that will link with an energy transit route in the South Caucasus and pump gas across Albania and Greece to Italy. The pipeline, dubbed TAP, is part of an alternative gas route to the EU-backed Nabucco project.

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(News report from Issue No. 100, published on Aug. 10 2012)

Turkmenistan to attract investors for TAPI

JULY 28 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen officials will travel to Singapore, New York and London in September and October to try and tempt potential investors into sponsoring a proposed gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India via Afghanistan and Pakistan, media reported. The estimated cost of the proposed pipeline, dubbed TAPI, is around $10b.

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(News report from Issue No. 099, published on Aug. 3 2012)

An energy route between the Caspian Sea and Europe

JUNE 26 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a ceremony in Istanbul, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan signed a deal to finally complete a gas pipeline route from the Caspian Sea to western Turkey.

The $7b deal paves the way for the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline (dubbed TANAP) to be built across Turkey, bringing gas ever closer to Europe.

For years the EU has been trying to put together a plan for a new energy route through the South Caucasus and on to central Europe.

Its preferred option had been to build a new gas pipeline called Nabucco from eastern Turkey straight to central Europe. This though has proved complicated and momentum has slowed.

That’s why TANAP is important. It will provide the link and should be built within six years. The plan is for TANAP to carry 16bcm (billion cubic metres) of gas a year, half the capacity that Nabucco ambitiously aimed for. Still, of that 16 bcm, 6bcm is designated to Turkey and 10bcm to Europe through a proposed branch pipeline, media reported.

And TANAP — Azerbaijan owns an 80% stake, Turkey 20% — has said that capacity can be boosted. By delivering gas to western Turkey, TANAP will also secure gas for Europe.

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(News report from Issue No. 094, published on June 29 2012)