MAY 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The head of SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state energy company, Rovnag Abdullayev, announced that the company would buy from Russia’s Gazprom 5b cubic metres annually. SOCAR needs the gas to hit growing demand and also to inject into oil wells to expand production. Relations between Russia and Azerbaijan have been improving.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it is considering a series of loans worth a total of $1.5b to fund the second phase of Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz offshore gas project, local media reported.
In March, the ADB had said it was considering lending $450m to Shah Deniz, which will be the main supplier for the so-called Southern Gas Corridor network of pipelines designed to pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe.
“The proposed investment plan will support the Azerbaijani government’s efforts to finance Shah Deniz- 2 project,” the bank said in a statement. “The investment plan is expected to be approved on August 22 by ADB’s board of directors.”
A consortium led by BP and SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company, which will be the beneficiary of ADB’s loans.
The ADB said it will reach a final decision on the amount of the loans after a site visit in June.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rights groups accused the Tajik government of blocking several news websites for two days, including Asia Plus and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Tajikistan is building up to a referendum on May 22 on extending the President’s powers, creating a potentially nervy period. Media freedom lobby groups regularly rank Tajikistan as one of the least free countries in the world.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – National carrier Uzbekistan Airways said it will open a new route to the Russian city of Voronezh, in south- western Russia. It will fly once every week connecting Tashkent and Voronezh from June 14. Thousands of Uzbek migrants work in Voronezh, in factories and in the construction sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s ministry of energy said construction of a 220kV transmission line between the Hradzan thermal power plant and the Shinuayr substation will be completed by the end of the year. The 230km-long transmission line will be an important link between power generating centres in Armenia. The World Bank’s International Bank for Reconstruction and Development said it would fund the project with a series of loans.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Copper prices dipped below the psychological threshold of $2/lb in mid January, for the first time since 2009, and it has bit of a roller-coaster ride since.
Shares of Central Asia Metals and KAZ Minerals, two Kazakhstan– focused producers, have followed copper’s ups and downs.
As shown in the graph above, shares in KAZ Minerals, which mines copper in northern and eastern Kazakhstan, have fluctuated more dramatically with copper prices.
Shares in Central Asia Metals, have been more stable.
With copper prices now sliding back towards $2/lb, share prices for both Central Asia Metals and KAZ Minerals are falling. This week, they were down 5.3% and 9% respectively.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
APRIL 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Kyrgyzstan extended a prison sentence on the widely reviled Maxim Bakiyev, the son of the ousted former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, to 30 years for money laundering and extortion. Bakiyev has been living in London since he fled Kyrgyzstan after a revolution in 2010. In 2015, a transparency group revealed that he owns a mansion in southern England worth an estimated $5m. Kyrgyzstan has applied to have Bakiyev extradited but his lawyers have successfully countered this request by saying that he wouldn’t receive a fair trial in Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s ministry of energy reported that in Jan.-April 2016, the country produced 7.6b kWh of electricity. This is 1.6% higher than the same period last year. Turkmenistan is looking to expand electricity exports to neighbouring Iran and Afghanistan and plans to construct 15 gas turbine power plants by 2020.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A Kyrgyz court freed Nariman Tuleyev, former mayor of Bishkek, after roughly three years in prison. He had been convicted of corruption over a deal to buy Chinese buses and snow removal equipment. It’s unclear exactly why the Kyrgyz authorities had decided to amnesty Tuleyev although there have been allegations that he was beaten in prison.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Toronto-listed miner Orsu Metals lost $437,000 in the first quarter of 2016, cutting its losses by around 50% from the same period last year. Most of the company’s losses are now booked for “assets held for sale”. Last month, Orsu agreed to sell its Karchiga and Kogodai mines in Kazakhstan to UAE-registered Karasat Trading for around $10m. After announcing the sale, Orsu de-listed from London’s AIM.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
