MARCH 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Scientists said they had found fossils belonging to an earlier cousin of the T-Rex dinosaur in Uzbekistan’s Kyzylkum desert. The discovery of the fossils of a smaller version of T-Rex were hailed as a major scientific breakthrough.
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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)
MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek president Islam Karimov officially appointed Aziz Abdukhakimov as minister for labour, a new ministry formed out of the ministry for labour and social protection. Mr Abdukhakimov had previously been the minister for labour and social protection. It is unclear why Mr Karimov wanted to change the name of the ministry.
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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)
MARCH 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Due to sustained low oil prices, South Africa’s Sasol is considering dropping its gas-to-liquids project in Uzbekistan. In Uzbekistan, Sasol operates jointly with Malaysia’s Petronas and state-owned Uzbekneftegaz. The project cost stands at around $5.6b. Sasol said it will make a final decision on the project in the first half of the year.
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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)
MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Uzbek government wants to invest around $294m to increase production and efficiencies in its gas sector, mainly to boost the Ustyurt chemical plant.
State-owned Uzbekneftegaz co- owns the Ustyurt chemical plant with South Korea’s Lotte Chemicals. The $4.1b project was opened in October and is considered key to Uzbekistan’s future economic plans.
The Uzbek government will directly invest around $236m in the Sharkiy Berdakh gas fields near the Aral Sea to complete the new booster compressor station it is building with Ukrainian firm Sumy. The state-run Fund for Reconstruction and Development will provide an additional $58m through a loan.
Uzbekistan is in the top 15 gas producing countries in the world and sees it as the bedrock of its future economic plans. It’s a gamble, though. Uzbekistan and its partners have committed to large energy projects, with fixed up-front costs, as energy prices continue to bounce along record lows.
If it all goes to plan, the project will be completed in November 2016 and output at the gas fields will be increased by 15% to around 2b cubic metres annually. Improved infrastructure will allow Sharkiy Berdakh to supply the Ustyurt plant, located around 100km away in the remote Karakalpakstan region of western Uzbekistan.
The Ustyurt chemical complex has a processing capacity of 4.5b cubic metres per year. It has been designed to turn Uzbekistan into a gas processing hub for Central Asia and also Russia.
Uzbekistan is also looking to invest in its largest chemical complex, Navoiazot. The government issued a $393m loan last week to extend its nitrogen and ammonia facilities.
The Uzbek government has put 49% of Navoiazot, in central Uzbekistan, up for sale to foreign investors in a recent drive to privatise state assets to raise funds to ward off a worsening economic slowdown.
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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)
FEB. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rating agency Moody’s cut Khamkorbank’s long-term local currency deposit rating to B2 from B1. In February, the Uzbek Central Bank suspended the bank’s licence to trade foreign currencies for six months. The World Bank’s IFC and the Netherlands’ state-owned FMO own stakes in Khamkorbank.
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(News report from Issue No. 270, published on March 4 2016)
MARCH 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek president Islam Karimov has created the position of deputy khokim across the countries regions in a move apparently aimed at reducing the power of the main khokims, RFE/RL reported. Khokims are powerful regional governors who are centrally appointed. They control swathes of the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 270, published on March 4 2016)
ALMATY, FEB. 26 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkcell, Turkey’s largest telecoms operator, said it had submitted a formal offer for TeliaSonera’s share in Fintur, a holding company that owns several stakes in telecoms operators across Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
TeliaSonera owns a 58.55% stake in Fintur. Turkcell owns the rest of the Netherlands-based company. Fintur, in turn, owns stakes in Azerbaijan Azercell, Georgia’s Geocell, Kazakhstan’s Kcell, Uzbekistan Ucell and Tajikistan’s Tcell.
If the sale goes through, the deal will reduce TeliaSonera’s exposure to the region. TeliaSonera will not, though, be able to walk away completely as the Swedish-Finnish company owns, directly and indirectly, 38% of Turkcell.
Other major Turkcell shareholders include Alfa Group and Cukurova Holding.
Many TeliaSonera shareholders had wanted the company to quit the region entirely after being accused of bribing senior officials in Uzbekistan for 3G licences nine years ago. The corruption investigation is ongoing.
In its statement, Turkcell also said it had submitted another offer for TeliaSonera’s directly owned 24% share in Kcell. If the two companies agree on the sale, Turkcell will own 75% in Kcell.
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(News report from Issue No. 270, published on March 4 2016)
FEB. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek officials said that work on a $1.63b railway section in the Fergana Valley had been completed, meaning that trains can now travel from Tashkent without having to pass through Tajikistan.
Although the cost of the 123km track is high, driven up by kilometres of tunnels and bridges that were needed to breach the mountainous terrain, for Uzbekistan cutting out the irritation of having to deal with Tajikistan makes it worth it.
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have been at loggerheads since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
At its core, Uzbekistan worried about Tajik plans to build hydropower dams across rivers that feed Uzbekistan’s cotton crops. Tajikistan doesn’t like Uzbekistan’s unilateral stance.
This impacted rail traffic, which steadily dropped off.
The World Bank estimated the route will transport 600,000 people and 5 tonnes of freight every year. The project also underlines the financial might of China in the region. It paid $350m of the cost of the project, the World Bank paid $190m and the Uzbek government covered the rest.
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(News report from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)
FEB. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – At 19.2km, the Kamchik Pass railway tunnel may be the longest in Central Asia and might also be a great engineering achievement, but it is also a sign of Uzbekistan’s further isolation from world politics and markets.
Uzbekistan said it completed a World Bank and China-backed railway bypass in the Ferghana Valley that will allow its trains to run to the east of the country without having to transit through Tajikistan.
The World Bank support is important because it shows international endorsement for a mega project that Uzbekistan was eager to achieve despite the economic downturn rolling through Central Asia.
Chinese money and workers were key to the success of the project, as China has growing interest in building infrastructure in Central Asia to support its ambitious project to connect with Europe via rail and road.
Tajikistan is the main loser in this game. It will no longer receive the in- kind payment of $25m worth of gas shipments from Uzbekistan in exchange for the railway transit. And it also lost an important diplomatic chip in its endless row with Tashkent.
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(Editorial from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)
FEB. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in eastern Uzbekistan sentenced five men to jail for between 5-1/2 and 12 years for various charges linked to religious extremism, media reported. Uzbek officials have said that the threat from radical extremists has intensified although Western human rights groups have said that Uzbek officials are more interested in suppressing dissent than fighting terrorism.
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(News report from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)