Tag Archives: refining

Kazakh oil company completes maintenance

NOV. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Oil company PetroKazakhstan said it has completed planned maintenance and remodelling work at its Shymkent refinery three days ahead of schedule. Kazakhstan’s ministry of energy has repeatedly said that the country needs to upgrade its refineries and build a new one. London-traded KMG EP, a subsidiary of state-owned Kazmunaigas, owns a 33% stake in PetroKazakhstan, while China’s CNPC owns the rest.

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(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

 

Georgia signs deal with Iran to build new oil refinery

TBILISI, SEPT. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian-Iranian company GEOPARS signed a deal with the Georgian government to build an oil refinery in Supsa on the Black Sea coast, the first to be built in Georgia for 80 years.

According to local media, the government licensed the land to GEOPARS for free. GEOPARS said it would need to make an investment of $1.5b to build the refinery, a petro- chemical plant and a logistical centre.

PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili attended the signing ceremony and hailed its impact on Georgia’s industrial sector.

“We will see a project that once again accentuates and reinforces Georgia’s regional role as the shortest route to Europe for Near East and Asian countries. This is a project that puts Georgia on a map by highlighting not only its transit function, but its industrial role as well,” local media quoted him as saying.

Caution is needed, though. Georgia has negotiated building an oil refinery in Supsa or Poti several times previously with Azerbaijani, Kazakh and Russian investors but the deals eventually fell through.

SOCAR Georgia Investments, a subsidiary of Azerbaijan’s state owned energy company SOCAR, had proposed building a refinery in Supsa in May, but failed to commit funds.

This is the first refinery deal in Georgia made with Iran, which has played an increasingly active role in the South Caucasus over the past few years. If the project does go ahead, it will give Iran an important foothold in Georgia, a close US ally.

The only major oil refinery previously built in Georgia was at Batumi in the 1930s. The Batumi refinery was downgraded in the 1990s and sold to Kazakh investors. It later became an oil terminal.

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(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

Kyrgyzstan receives tax back from Chinese refinery company

SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz MP Yekmat Baibakpayev said that the state budget received just over 1b som ($15m) from the China-run Junda refinery, which faced closure this year for evading taxes. Mr Baibakpayev said that the oil refinery, located in the north of the country, owes the government five times as much. The Junda refinery was built by the China Petrol Company for $430m and opened in 2014.

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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)

Dispute threatens Kazakh refinery company’s sale of Romanian refinery

JULY 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A legal battle between Kazakhstan’s KMG International and the Roma- nian government risks stalling a $680m deal to sell a majority stake in the Kazakh company’s refinery to China’s CEFC.

KMG International, formerly known as Rompetrol, is preparing to lodge a lawsuit against the Romanian government over the seizure in May of its assets, according to the FT.

The Romanian government has said the Petromidia refinery, the largest in the country, was illegally privatised in the early 2000s before Kazmunaigas bought Rompetrol.

KMG International has now submitted a legal note to the Romanian government that will escalate the dispute.

“Romania is using its governmental power to undermine that transaction and re-nationalise the assets,” the FT quoted KMG International as saying in a letter to the government.

KMG International had to delay finalising the deal with CEFC, which in December agreed a $680m fee to buy 51% of the refinery.

Robert Cutler, Senior Researcher at the Institute of European Studies at Carleton University, Montreal, said that Romania was looking to block the sale.

“Kazakhstan is about to find out what it is like to be on the receiving end of ‘resource nationalism’, which it [Kazakhstan] has successfully used against foreign investors over the last decade,” he told The Conway Bulletin.

This delay and the asset freeze has angered officials at both KMG International and Kazmunaigas, its parent company.

Senior company officials have said that they will take legal action if the refinery sale is delayed.

Romanian investigators have focused on recovering cash from an allegedly illegal privatisation of the refinery in 2003, when the late Dinu Patriciu bought Petromidia for $760m. In 2007, Patriciu sold Rompetrol, which controlled Petromidia, to Kazmunaigas for $1.6b.

In the following years, the government acquired an 18% stake in the refinery.

Now, analysts say, the government might be looking to renationalise the refinery, an important and lucrative asset for Romania.

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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Turkish police arrests CEO of Azerbaijan’s state energy company for links to Gulen movement

AUG 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish authorities have arrested Sadettin Korkut, former CEO of Petkim, an Azerbaijan-owned refinery on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, in what media said was part of a purge of people linked to exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen (July 28).

Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR dismissed the claim, saying that the arrest was linked to a spat with another employee of SOCAR Turkey Enerji, its Turkish subsidiary.

Mr Korkut had resigned as CEO, a position he had held for four years, the day before he was arrested. Twenty-seven other employees of SOCAR’s Turkish subsidiary, which operates the Petkim refinery, were also sacked at the same time.

Turkish media immediately linked the arrest and the sackings to the Gulenist movement, which they dub a terrorist network.

“Around 200 workers from Petkim and related companies were sacked due to their alleged ties to the Gulenist Terror Organisation (FETO),” the Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Around 60,000 public sector employees and dozens of journalists and businessmen were arrested in Turkey in the aftermath of an attempted military coup on July 15. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Mr Gulen of masterminding the coup from his exile in the US.

Azerbaijan is one of Turkey’s strongest allies. It backed the arrest.

“SOCAR’s management believes that Turkey will become stronger after these difficult days. We will continue to operate and invest in Turkey with all of our energy,” Vagif Aliyev, CEO of SOCAR Turkey Enerji said in a statement.

SOCAR Turkey Enerji and SOCAR Turkey Petrokimiya own a majority stake in Petkim.

Anar Mammadov, head of SOCAR’s Greek subsidiary, has been appointed new CEO of Petkim.

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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

 

Kazakhstan and Iran to build refinery

JUNE 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan and Iran will build a new refinery in the Iranian Caspian Sea port of Amirabad, Golestan,specifically to process Kazakh oil for export. It is unclear how much the refinery is going to cost to build and when it will be operational but it is probably the biggest single joint venture between the two countries since many Western sanctions on Iran were lifted in January.

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

 

Azerbaijan’s energy company reorganises its assets in Turkey

JUNE 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — SOCAR Turkey Enerji, a subsidiary of Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company, has said it wants to buy stakes in a pipeline and a lubricants company and sell a stake in a refinery, in a major shake up of its operations in Turkey.

SOCAR Turkey Enerji said it is interested in buying OMV Petrol Ofisi, a subsidiary of the Austrian energy company that produces fuel and lubricants in Turkey. To secure the deal, the Azerbaijani company will have to beat competition from Chinese and Japanese companies.

“SOCAR has an interest in this deal. We are waiting for the company to submit information on these assets,” Zaur Gakhramanov, the company’s head, told local media. He also said his company wants to buy a 7% stake in TANAP, the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline, from SOCAR, which owns a 58% stake in the project.

Perhaps adding to the company’s expansion plans, Mr Gakhramanov also said that SOCAR Turkey Enerji plans an IPO in 2020 for 49% of its shares. He did not say where the company’s shares would list.

But this year SOCAR Turkey Enerji has also looked to sell.

In May, it said it wanted to sell off its shares in Turkey’s petrochemical complex Petkim. In March SOCAR Turkey Enerji cut its share in Petkim from 8.07% to 5.32%. SOCAR Turkey Petrokimiya, another SOCAR subsidiary, still owns 51% of the project.

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(News report from Issue No. 283, published on June 3 2016)

Refinery capacity rises in Turkmenistan

MAY 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s ministry of oil and gas said it wants to double oil refining capacity in the country over the next three years, in an effort to increase the domestic output of oil products. The ministry said it plans to increase capacity to 20m tonnes by 2020 and then to 30m tonnes by 2030. Last year, Turkmenistan missed its goal of reaching its refining capacity of 15m tonnes. It currently only process around 11m tonnes/year.

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(News report from Issue No. 283, published on June 3 2016)

 

Azerbaijan’s oil company to build new refinery

MAY 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company, said it will build a new oil refinery in Kulevi, on Georgia’s Black Sea coast, near its existing oil terminal. SOCAR said it has agreed with Georgian authorties to build the plant by the end of 2019. The refinery will cost $120m to build and will have a capacity of 2m tonnes/year.

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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Romania seizes Kazakhstan’s Kazmunaigas refinery

ALMATY, MAY 6 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) – Prosecutors in Romania ordered the seizure of the Petromidia refinery part-owned by a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s Kazmunaigas as they re-opened an investigation into its privatisation in the 2000s.

The seizure of the refinery comes only a few days after China’s CEFC China Energy Company Limited completed a $680m deal to buy a 51% stake in KMG International, the Kazmunaigas subsidiary that owns the Petromidia refinery. Kazmunaigas has been looking to sell off assets and raise cash to help it through a sustained economic downturn.

Rompetrol was renamed KMG International in 2014, although the Rompetrol brand still lingers.

Romanian investigators have been focused on recovering cash they say is owed to it after a deal by the late Dinu Patriciu to buy the Petromidia refinery in 2003 from the state for $760m through Rompetrol, which he owned. He bought the Petromidia refinery from the government not with cash but with a bond.

In 2007, Patriciu sold Rompetrol and its daughter companies to Kazmunaigas for $1.6b.

When in 2010 Rompetrol’s bonds reached maturity, Kazmunaigas refused to pay the government the $600m coupon. Instead it gave the Romanian government a 45% stake in Rompetrol. This was reduced to 18% in 2014 after the Romanian government agreed to sell Kazakhstan a 27% stake for $200m.

KMG International said it had not been involved in any wrongdoing and that this legal case could damage its business plans in Romania.

“These are new developments which may have significant negative impact on KMG’s strategic objectives and development plans in Romania,” the press service said in a statement.

The company later also said it is also ready to take legal action.

“We will analyse the facts about the charges and to what extent such deeds justify the seizure of company assets. If we find that the seizure is not justified, we will challenge those seizures,” Gheorghe Albu, a lawyer for KMG International lawyer, said.

Petromidia is Romania’s largest refinery and is situated near Năvodari on the Black Sea coast.

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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on  May 13 2016)