Category Archives: Uncategorised

Armenia asks for gas price help

JAN. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia asked Gazprom to lower the prices of gas imports by 21% to $130 per thousand cubic metres to help it weather a fierce economic storm that has hit the region.

Media reported that Armenian gas consumers currently pay an excessive price for gas. Russia reduced the cost of gas sold to Armenia last year but the government didn’t pass that saving on to consumers. It now says that it’s time to give Armenian consumers a discount.

Last year, Armenians protested at a proposed increase in the price of electricity, giving the authorities a sharp reminder of their reputation for street-level politics.

In that instance the government backed down and avoided the price rises.

Armenia is a key Russian ally in the South Caucasus. The Russian military maintains a major base in Armenia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Stock market: Tethys, KAZ Minerals, Centerra

JAN. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tethys shares dropped to their lowest price since listing in 2011, falling 18% over the last week to 1.75p. Our graph shows its fall since the start of December.

Problems at its operations in Tajikistan may have dented investors’ confidence. China’s CNPC and France’s Total, its partners in the Bokhtar oil project, have said they want Tethys to exit the venture.

Last week, also, the Tajik government joined the fray and said it might expropriate 25% of the licensed area, as production hasn’t started yet.

Commodities prices were stable, after months of depreciation against the US dollar. But this has not helped all miners in the region. In fact, Centerra shares fell, due to the ongoing controversy with its Mongolian operations. On the upside, KAZ Minerals continued its upward trend, thanks to the continued depreciation of the Kazakh tenge. Its costs are in tenge. Its earnings in US dollars.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Uzbek leader cuts cotton harvest

JAN. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek President Islam Karimov said in a speech he wanted to switch some cotton fields to growing vegetables, perhaps a sign agricultural self-sufficiency has become a more important objective for Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan’s cotton harvest will fall to 3m tonnes by 2020 from its current 3.5m tonne crop.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Georgia holds Russia gas import talks

JAN. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian Energy Minister Kakha Kaladze said that he wanted to increase the amount of gas imported from Russia to 20% of Georgia’s total consumption, up from 11%, as he prepared to meet Gazprom executives for more talks. Plans to boost gas imports from Russia have irritated many Georgians. Georgia and Russia fought a war in 2008.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

VimpelCom to pay $600m fine for Uzbek bribes

JAN. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian telecoms company Vimpel- Com said it would plead guilty to bribing Uzbek government officials for mobile phone licences and agree to pay a $600m settlement in the United States, bringing a row over corruption in Uzbekistan that has also involved Sweden’s TeliaSonera and Norway’s Telenor closer to an end.

Sources close to the company told the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti that the amount that VimpelCom is ready to pay is lower than the $900m it set aside in the last months of 2015 for possible penalties.

A prosecution team at the New York District Court has been target- ing VimpelCom and MTS, another Russian company, who allegedly paid around $500m in exchange for mobile licences, but other companies have been dragged into a row that centres on corruption in Uzbekistan

In November, Norwegian police arrested Jo Lunder, VimpelCom’s ex-CEO for alleged bribe paying. Earlier, Norwegian authorities had sacked the chairman of Telenor, a company that owns — and wants to sell — a 33% stake in VimpelCom.

A parallel investigation is looking into a similar corruption issues at TeliaSonera, a Swedish competitor to VimpelCom in Uzbekistan. TeliaSonera now wants to sell its Eurasian unit.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Lavrov to visit Turkmen capital

JAN. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has scheduled a visit Ashgabat to open a new embassy on Jan. 27/28, media reported, just as relations between the two countries appear to bottom out over a row about gas supplies. Earlier this year Russian gas monopoly confirmed that it would stop buying gas from Turkmenistan and instead buy from neighbouring Uzbekistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Tajik authorities tighten internet access

JAN. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon signed a decree forcing all internet traffic into Tajikistan to pass through a single entry point controlled by state-run Tajiktelecom, media reported. The authorities in Tajikistan regularly turn off access to social media websites which they say are being used by Islamic radicals to infiltrate Tajik society.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Central Asia and South Caucasus welcome Iran

JAN. 16/17 2016, ALMATY/Kazakhstan (The Conway Bulletin) – Countries in the South Caucasus and Central Asia applauded the end of western sanctions against Iran, a move they hope will turn their southern neighbour into a strong trade and diplomatic partner.

But, as well as adding a hopefully vibrant economy on their southern fringe, the reemergence of Iran also presents a major potential downside.

Low commodity and oil prices have been a major contributor to an economic downturn that has shaken the region. Adding Iran’s large oil reserve to the market will further pressure prices which are already hovering around 12-year-lows of $28/barrel, down from $115/barrel in the summer of 2014.

Most countries in the region issued a statement applauding Iran’s return to the international fold.

The Kazakh foreign ministry said: “It is a critically important step in creating a safer world.”

It also said that Iran had signed its first post-sanctions international agreement with Kazakhstan’s Air Astana to open an Almaty-Tehran flight in 2016.

In the South Caucasus, Armenia and Georgia are trying to negotiate gas supply deals with Iran, and Azerbaijan may be able to persuade Tehran to fill part of its TANAP gas pipeline running via Turkey to Europe.

Elham Hassanzadeh, Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said Iran could become an important trade and diplomatic partner for Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

“It will certainly be an easier partner to trade with [than previously],” she told The Conway Bulletin in an interview.

“The cost of doing business with Iran will be significantly lower than that of during the sanctions era while less economic and political restrictions on a given country in the region could be translated into less antagonism and conflict and more collaboration and constructive dialogue.”

She said, though, that energy would be at the forefront of relations. “A good number of Azeri and Turkmen companies are planning to invest in Iran’s oil and gas sector,” Ms Hassanzadeh said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Nordavia flies to Armenia

JAN. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian airline company Nordavia said it will open a regular flight from St. Petersburg to Yerevan. Nordavia previously only operated regular domestic flights in western Russia. According to the press statement, Nordavia will fly between St. Petersburg and Armenia’s capital three times a week.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Remittances fall to Georgia

JAN. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Total remittances to Georgia fell by 25% in 2015 to $1.08b, mainly because of a sharp slowdown in the Russian economy, the Central Bank said. Remittances from Russia fell by 39% to $433m and from Greece (Georgia’s second largest remittance originator) by 42.5% to $118m. A slowdown in Russia’s economy has rippled out across the former Soviet Union.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)