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Turkmenistan and Afghanistan open railway

NOV. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan and Afghanistan opened a long awaited rail link which should ease trade, especially shipments of refined fuel. Turkmenistan’s economy relies of gas sales, mainly to China, but it has been looking to diversity into refined fuel and electricity exports and it sees Afghanistan as a potentially important market. It has built a 540,000 tonne oil product terminal at the Ymemnazar customs point on the border with Afghanistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

BTC flows to drop, according to Azerbaijan’s state budget

NOV. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline will drop oil transport next year, according to a forecast in Azerbaijan’s state budget. In 2017, BTC will transport 31m tonnes, down from 32.5m tonnes that the government forecast for this year. In 2016, exports via BTC increased, but the share of Azerbaijan’s SOCAR in pipeline sales decreased in favour of its foreign partners.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Tajik and Kyrgyz military fire shots

NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Shots have been fired by Tajik and Kyrgyz border guards on their shared border, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. The border is one of the most tense in Central Asia. RFE/RL said that nobody had been injured in the fighting and that it wasn’t clear if the shots had been fired into the air as warnings or had been aimed at security personnel.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Domestic violence rises in Azerbaijan

NOV. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Giving a rare insiders’ view of domestic life in Azerbaijan, MP Elmira Akhundova said that violence against women by their husbands was rising. Media quoted her as saying that punishments must be increased for men who kill or injure their wives. Official government statistics have said that domestic violence in Azerbaijan has halved over the past couple of years because, the authorities have said, of harsh new punishments. Activists, though, have refuted this and said that the government simply makes up the numbers for its own benefit.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Defaming Aliyev is criminal, votes Azerbaijan’s parliament

NOV. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s parliament voted to make defamation of the president on the internet a criminal offence, a move that President Ilham Aliyev’s critics say highlights just how authoritarian his administration has become. Defamation has been a criminal offence for three years in Azerbaijan but there had previously been no specific mention of the president. The internet is important in Azerbaijan as it is, or was, one of the only places were Azerbaijanis could swap news and views relatively safely.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Azerbaijan’s GDP shrinks in Jan-Oct

NOV. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s finance minister Samir Sharifov admitted in a parliamentary session that the country’s overall GDP had dropped by 3.7% between Jan. and Oct. this year. He also said, and this is important as Azerbaijan has said it wants to diversify away from oil and gas production, that the non-oil part of the economy had shrunk by over 6%. Azerbaijan has been badly hit by the fall in oil prices and a recession in Russia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Taliban to protect Turkmen pipeline

NOV. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Apparently in a bid to win popular support from locals, the Taliban have pledged to protect major infrastructure projects planned for Afghanistan, media reported, including the ambitious TAPI gas pipeline that is being built. TAPI is supposed to run from Turkmenistan to India via Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects attempted. One of its major weaknesses, its critics pointed out, was the poor security situation in Afghanistan. If they do support TAPI, the Taliban would immediately improve its prospects of success.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Kazakhstan links two gas pipelines, boosting flows to China

ALMATY, NOV. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s state- owned distributor KazTransGas said it had completed building a compressor station that will link two main gas pipelines and allow it to pump more gas to China, a key client for Central Asian energy producers.

The Bukhara-Bishkek-Almaty pipeline will now be linked directly to the Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline, boosting Kazakhstan’s transit capacity and securing supplies to Almaty, Kazakhstan’s biggest city. The route will allow the giant gas fields in the west of Kazakhstan to pump gas directly to China.

Dair Kusherov, deputy director of KazTransGas enthused about the options that linking the pipelines would bring.

“First, we have opened a route to export domestic gas to China, expanding our export and transport capabilities,” media quoted him as saying at the opening of the compressor station. “Second, the link will provide uninterrupted gas supplies to the city of Almaty and Almaty region. Third, the new station provides a backup route for uninterrupted gas supply to consumers in Almaty via gas pipeline bypassing the territory of the Kyrgyz Republic.”

Boosting its gas transit options eastwards also highlights China’s dominance over energy flows from Central Asia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Azerbaijani gold miner connects to grid

NOV. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijani gold miner Anglo Asian said it connected its Gedabek mine to the national electricity grid, which would save the company around $2.3m/year. The connection cost $2.1m. Previously, the company used diesel generators to produce electricity. Anglo Asian CEO Reza Vaziri said that with unrestrained and cheaper electricity, the company will also be able to expand production.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Kazakh President declines to rename Astana

NOV. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a carefully orchestrated show of modesty, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev declined to rename Astana, the capital city he built on Kazakhstan’s windswept steppe, after himself. He made the announcement during an interview with Russia-24. Parliament had made the suggestion earlier in November. Mr Nazarbayev critics accuse him of building a personality cult. Mr Nazarbayev has appeared more interested in burnishing his image and legacy over the past few years, allowing statues of himself to be built and appearing on a new bank note. Analysts had said he may fancy renaming Astana after himself.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)