Tag Archives: Azerbaijan

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)

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)

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)

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)

Opec, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan

DEC. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Oil prices shifted up more than 10% after OPEC, the group of oil exporting countries, agreed to reduce output by 1.2m barrels/day starting in January.

This is good news for oil-rich countries across the South Caucasus and Central Asia, as the potential positive impact on oil prices could be sustained for a few months longer.

Throughout 2016, OPEC has repeatedly pledged to decrease output if non-OPEC countries also participated in the cut. In reality, though, the issue at stake was Saudi Arabia’s unwillingness to relinquish market share to Iran, who had just re-emerged from western sanctions and rapidly increased its output.

Now Saudi Arabia will slash 500,000 barrels/day from its output of around 11m barrels/day. Other OPEC countries will cut a total of 700,000 barrels/day and some non- OPEC countries pledged cuts for 600,000 barrels/day. For reference, the total cut would be 20% larger than Kazakhstan’s total oil production in 2016.

In fact, both Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have used the OPEC deals as smokescreens to conceal declining production figures, as some of their projects have become unsustainable at low oil prices.

The output from the giant offshore field of Kashagan, which is three years late in hitting commercial levels of production, is no consolation either for Kazakhstan. Analysts have said that the field, sited in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, is profitable only with oil prices at $100/barrel at a minimum, a figure that is currently not on the horizon.

This means that Kazakhstan’s government will have to wait longer to reap the benefits of its largest oil basin.

ENDS

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

UK’s Gunsynd invests in Azerbaijan

NOV. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — British investment company Gunsynd increased its stake in Zenith Energy, a Canada-based oil and gas company focused on Azerbaijan. Gunsynd bought 300,000 shares for £49,000 ($62,000) and now holds a 1.6% stake in the company. Zenith’s subsidiary, Zenith Aran Oil, signed a production sharing agreement with state-owned SOCAR in March for the exploitation of several small- scale oil fields.

ENDS

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

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR walks away from deal to buy Greek gas pipeline network

DEC. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state-owned SOCAR and Italy’s Snam pulled out of a deal to buy a major stake in Greek gas distributor DESFA after a row about the price, ending three years of on-off negotiations.

The failure of the deal scuppers SOCAR’s ambitions to own a major gas pipeline network inside the EU that would also have acted as the final section of the so-called Southern Gas Corridor, a network of gas pipelines that it has built to pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe.

Greece’s energy ministry announced the collapse of the deal.

“In the last months, the government has been in ongoing talks with representatives of the companies SOCAR and Snam for the sale of 66% of DESFA. The atmosphere in the talks was constructive,” it said in a statement.

“Nevertheless, the offer submitted on the part of the prospective buyers regarding the reduction of the sale price (repayment in instalments) was legally impossible and would have invalidated the tender.”

Neither SOCAR nor Snam have commented.

The deal was originally hailed as a landmark agreement in 2013 when SOCAR agreed to pay €400m for a 66% stake in DESFA.

The EU, though, stepped in to block the deal because it failed to comply with its market competition laws. This bans companies that own upstream elements of an energy supply chain from owning more than 49% of downstream elements.

In July this year Stergios Pitsiorlas, chairman of the state Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund, said that SOCAR had found a partner in Italy’s Snam. They would, he said, split the stake. SOCAR would buy 49% and Snam 17%.

This air of success, though, has soured over the last few months when SOCAR and Snam tried to renegotiate the price. They said a 50% collapsed in energy prices since 2014 meant that the original €400m price tag was over-inflated.

Now the deal has been declared dead with Greece officials apparently refusing to budge on the price.

Despite the failure of SOCAR to buy DESFA, the Southern Gas Corridor should still be delivering gas to Europe by 2019/2020.

ENDS

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

Stock market: Georgian lari and Azerbaijani manat

DEC. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Currencies in the South Caucasus have declined sharply over the past few weeks after a slew of poor economic data and a strengthening US dollar.

The Georgian lari hit an all-time low on Tuesday, when it traded at 2.53/$1. A year ago it traded at 1.84/$1. In the past two months, it has fallen by 8%.

The government in Tbilisi said the slide was due to a negative trade balance and the strengthening US dollar. In what could have been a spiral effect, demand for US dollars within Georgia soared, as people feared a sharper depreciation of the national currency.

Macroeconomic statistics have shown that Georgia’s GDP growth has slowed in the past months, disappointing observers.

The Azerbaijani manat, the world’s worst-performing currency in 2015, has also depreciated against the US dollar, down 6.5% in the last 60 days. It traded at 1.73 on Thursday, down almost 40% compared to last year.

Azerbaijan’s banks also stopped selling US dollars due to shortages.

ENDS

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

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR Trading eyes China

NOV. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — SOCAR Trading, the Geneva-based subsidiary of Azerbaijan’s state- owned energy company, said it will look to boost sales to China after two experienced Chinese oil traders joined the company in November. In an interview with Reuters, SOCAR Trading CEO Arzu Azimov said that the company plans to enter the Asian markets.

ENDS

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

Lukashenko visits Azerbaijan

NOV. 28/29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko visited Azerbaijan for two days of talks with his counterpart Ilham Aliyev framed around improving bilateral relations and business links. This year, Azerbaijan has started supplying Belarus with oil and Mr Lukashenko appeared to hint that the Belarussian government was interested in increasing the flow of oil from Azerbaijan.

ENDS

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