MARCH 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan officials said the new 146km Yoloten-Tahtabazar power transmission line to Afghanistan has started operations, reinforcing another electricity supply route into South Asia from Central Asia. Turkmenistan produced 22.5b kWh in 2015 and it is looking to increase both production and export.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Igor Makarov, head of Russian company ARETI, previously known as ITERA, met with Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to discuss cooperation in the energy sector. ARETI works in 21 offshore blocks in the Turkmen section of the Caspian Sea through a contract signed in 2009.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
MARCH 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Turkish International Transport Association said Turkmenistan has started applying a 20% discount on “roll-on, roll-off” shipments of goods coming in from Azerbaijan since March 3. The discount on the fee has already helped boost Turkish-Turkmen trade relations according to the Association chief Fatih Sener. As it eyes markets for its gas, Turkmenistan is trying to improve relations with Turkey.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
MARCH 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov ordered a massive military exercise to check the readiness of Turkmenistan’s army. The exercise involved land, aerial and naval forces. Recent skirmishes along the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan border may have prompted the decision to call a large-scale show of strength.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
MARCH 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iranian official said they wanted to increase gas imports from Turkmenistan to feed its northern region which doesn’t hold any gas reserves. “We import gas from Turkmenistan. It’s good for us because it means that we don’t need to get gas from [the] south to north- east Iran,” Ali Amirani, director at the National Iranian Gas Export Company, was quoted by Interfax Energy as saying. Gas relations between Iran and Turkmenistan are growing stronger and Iran is also mulling joint exploration activities in the border regions.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Turkmenbashi refinery complex plans to produce 340,000 tonnes of compressed natural gas (CNG) this year, a 13% increase compared to 2015. The majority of the production is booked for exports to Georgia, Iran, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Turkmenistan also uses CNG domestically as fuel.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – India’s oil ministry said in a statement that it will not sign a contract with Turkmenistan that fixes gas prices for supplies coming through the prospective TAPI pipeline. The Indian government said it will not repeat the unprofitable relationship it had with Qatar, which exported liquefied natural gas at a fixed prices. This became costly when oil prices collapsed in 2014 driving down spot prices for gas.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are close to signing a deal on the so called Trans-Eurasian Information Super Highway (TASIM) that aims to lay a superfast broadband cable linking Europe and Asia, media reported. The Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan deal aims to span the Caspian Sea.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)
MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A World Bank tribunal rejected a $567m claim by Turkish firm Ickale Insaat against Turkmenistan that the government had deliberately derailed several construction projects, a rare victory for a Central Asian government against private companies.
The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) said the claim was not substantiated by concrete cases of interference.
“There is no basis for the claims in the BIT [a 1992 Turkey-Turkmenistan bilateral treaty to protect investments], which does not create any cause of action under general principles of international law,” the ICSID wrote in its 175-page analysis of the case, specifying that the Turkish company will also have to pay $1.7m, or 20% of Turkmenistan’s total legal fees.
Ickale claimed that Turkmenistan had breached a dozen construction contracts signed in March-November 2007 to supply mainly consulting services on a series on projects.
The Turkmen side denied the accusations and instead said that Ickale failed to deliver on its promises to complete its works by 2009.
Ickale was supposed to deliver machinery and service construction works at two luxury hotels, four schools, one cinema in Ashgabat, and several other projects.
Ickale listed at least eight of these projects as “completed” on its website. Earlier in January, a Stockholm arbitration court had ruled against the Kazakh government in a case
brought by Estonian firm Windoor for reneging on a building deal in Astana.
Relations between Turkish firms and the Turkmen government might be worsening as the opposition newspaper Alternative News Turkmenistan alleged that another construction company Ilk Insaat had planned to sack around 1,200 workers in March-April.
When contacted by The Conway Bulletin, Ilk Insaat’s parent company declined to comment.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)
MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov flew to Islamabad for talks on the TAPI gas pipeline shortly after a high-level delegation from Tajikistan had met up with senior Pakistani officials, a sign of just how important Pakistan has become to Central Asian affairs.
According to reports from Islamabad, the talks between Mr Berdymukhamedov and Pakistani PM Sharif Nawaz were friendly and wide- ranging, focusing not just on the proposed TAPI gas pipeline that is supposed to run to India across Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The two leaders signed eight documents, on a number of different issues such as blocking funds to terrorism and fighting money laundering, and also praised progress on developing road links under the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation
And this is important. The TAPI pipeline has brought Pakistan and Turkmenistan closer together, just as the CASA-1000 power transit route plan has brought it closer towards Tajikistan, facilitating discussions on a range of bilateral issues.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)