Tag Archives: Azerbaijan

Business comment: BTC fails to live up to hype

APRIL 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In the early 2000s, the Baku-Tbilisi- Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline was hailed as a key component of the New Silk Road, designed by the West for the West. The dream might now be over.

Western oil producers wanted a pipeline that would pump Caspian oil to world markets without having to pass through Russia.

Everyone in Washington DC was excited. “Happiness is multiple pipelines” was the slogan that could be heard espoused by US diplomats and oil companies. It was even seen on bumper stickers around the US capital.

The 1b barrels/day dream pipeline was inaugurated in 2005 and relied on Azerbaijan’s largest oil fields as well as on Kazakh and Turkmen trans-Caspian shipments.

The decade-long excitement, however, seems to have hit a wall as Kazakh oil shipments have now faded away.

Experts don’t believe shipments will resume anytime soon. Tengizchevroil appears to have let its contract with BTC lapse. Kazakhstan’s Aktau port management has said it doesn’t foresee oil shipments from Tengiz resuming.

At a time of low oil prices and rising extraction prices, cutting expenditure on shipments of oil across the Caspian Sea was the obvious move for Kazakh producers.

Tengiz, and Kashagan whenever it comes online, will use the expanded Caspian Pipeline Consortium for future exports.

This choice will isolate Azerbaijan at a time when it is under the spotlight to become Europe’s new gas provider. The take-home from this story is that corporate interest, in the long run, overrides diplomatic objectives.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Kazakh oil producers ditch BTC pipeline export route

ALMATY, APRIL 26 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh oil producers have stopped exporting via the Baku- Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline as they become increasingly cost-conscious during this period of low global oil prices, a shift that will damage Azerbaijan’s reputation as an energy transit route from Asia to Europe

Data from BTC showed that Kazakhstan’s latest contribution to the pipeline was in January. This is the first time in years that Kazakh producers have suspended shipments for more than a month.

This confirms the marginalisation of BTC as an export route for Kazakh producers, most predominantly Chevron-led Tengizchevroil (TCO).

Analysts said the ditching of BTC as an export route for Kazakh oil, a route once heralded as the region’s saviour, was linked to both contractual and market constraints.

“The contract between TCO and BTC for shipments recently ended, and with the CPC pipeline expansion adding new export capacity, there is capacity to export more TCO oil via CPC, which is a more economical option for TCO at low oil prices,” said Andrew Neff, senior petroleum analyst at IHS.

The CPC, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, is an oil pipeline that sweeps around the northern Kazakh shore of the Caspian Sea and ends at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. It was designed in the 1990s to ship oil from TCO, Kazakhstan’s largest producer. It’s been gradually expanded and shipped 1.1m barrels/day in March, nearly double its rate of 10 years ago. BTC’s capacity is 1m barrels/day but in March 2016, it transported 721,500 barrels/day.

CPC is a cheaper export route because, to ship oil to the start of BTC, Kazakh producers needs to transport oil across the Caspian Sea.

Mr Neff, the IHS oil analyst, said that as well as hitting BTC’s earnings, dropping Kazakh oil from its mix will also reduce the quality of BTC exports.

“It will change BTC’s overall blend and lower its quality, as Turkmen crude is heavier, plus it will reduce oil transit revenues for Azerbaijan,” he said.

BTC’s main shareholders are BP with a 30% stake and Azerbaijan’s state-owned SOCAR with a 25% stake.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Stadler wins Georgian train deal

APRIL 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Swiss railway rolling stock manufacturer Stadler will send four double- decker trains to Georgia to service its most popular tourist resorts. The Georgian government plans to use the trains to connect the capital, Tbilisi, with three resort towns – Batumi, Kobuleti and Ureki. Stadler has already supplied similar trains to Azerbaijan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Amec wins Azerbaijani deal

APRIL 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – London-based energy service company Amec Foster Wheeler signed a contract for so-called frontend engineering design at Azerbaijan’s Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery in Bak. SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company, awarded the contract. Amec will complete the work by in Q1 2017.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Azerbaijan piles pressure on opposition journalists

APRIL 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Officials in Azerbaijan appear to have reversed a softening of a crackdown on human rights activists and the media.

Meydan TV, an opposition news agency, said that prosecutors had opened new criminal investigation on alleged illegal business activities involving 15 of its journalists, who have been told they cannot leave the country.

The action disappointed civil rights groups who had, only last week, been applauding the Azerbaijani leadership for allowing Leyla and Arif Yunus to leave Baku for the Netherlands. The two human rights activists had been released from prison at the end of last year. They were imprisoned on various charges, including espionage, which their supporters said had been fabricated.

Nina Ognianova, Europe and Central Asia coordinator at the lobby group the Committee to Protect Journalist, said: “We call on officials in Azerbaijan to immediately cease the witch hunt of contributors to the online broadcaster Meydan TV.”

The day after Meydan TV said that prosecutors had opened new cases against 15 journalists, Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court upheld a six year sentence against Murad Adilov, a member of the opposition Popular Front Party arrested in May last year on charges of drug possession.

Relations between the West and Azerbaijan have been strained over the past three years while Azerbaijani officials have increasingly clamped down on the opposition.

It’s become something of a diplomatic quagmire.

Europe needs Azerbaijani gas and the US wants a stable Azerbaijan as an ally to undermine Russia’s dominance in the region. Both, though, loathe Azerbaijan’s recent human rights record.

As for Azerbaijan, the authorities appear to want to be able to crack- down on troublesome opposition activists, journalists and civil rights workers but they also need Europe to help it extract its oil and gas and also to act as a major energy client.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Oil Tanker catches fire in Azerbaijan-Turkmen Caspian Sea sector

APRIL 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A crew member died after a Russian oil tanker caught fire in the southern section of the Caspian Sea, between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Coastal guards from the three littoral countries joined forces to extinguish the fire and rescue the rest of the crew. The tanker was not carrying oil at the time of the accident. Last December, a fire at offshore oil and gas platforms killed more than 30 Azerbaijani workers.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR plans expansion

APRIL 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR said it is eyeing expansion in both Ukraine and Turkey’s petrol distribution sector. This week, SOCAR said it is opening eight petrol station in Kiev. Last week SOCAR said it was in talks to buy OMV Petrol Ofisi, the Turkish subsidiary of Austria’s OMV.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

Leyla and Arif Yunus leave Azerbaijan for asylum in the Netherlands

APRIL 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an apparent softening of their hardline stance on dissidents, the Azerbaijani authorities allowed human rights activist Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif Yunus to leave the country to seek urgent medical care in Amsterdam.

The Yunuses, increasingly frail after spending more than a year in prison, will also be able to claim political asylum in the Netherlands, effectively allowing Azerbaijan to back out of an increasingly difficult stand-off with the West over the two human rights campaigners’ imprisonment.

Dutch foreign minister Bert Koenders welcomed their arrival and said it showed that international pressure to release human rights activists can pay off.

“Leyla and Arif have put their own happiness and safety on the line in their struggle for democracy and human rights,” he said. “In cases like these, silent diplomacy definitely gets results.”

Dinara Yunus, their daughter, lives in the Netherlands.

Arif Yunus was arrested in July 2014, just days after Leyla. Both were first charged with treason. Prosecutors later added financial crimes to the list of accusations.

Both denied the charges and said that they were politically motivated and part of a wider campaign against critics of the government. They were freed in December 2015 due to worsening health conditions.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

Azerbaijan’s GDP shrinks in Q1

APRIL 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s GDP shrank by 3.5% in the first quarter of the year to 12b manat ($7.95b), the Statistics Committee said. A fall in industrial production and flat oil production have worsened Azerbaijan’s overall economic performance, according to the government.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

Town ditches Kazakh President

APRIL 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Harich, a small village in north western Armenia, renamed a street previously dedicated to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in retaliation for his perceived support for Azerbaijan over Armenia in the neighbours’ row over Nagorno-Karabakh. Earlier this month the most serious fighting in two decades broke out between Armenia-backed fighters and Azerbaijan around Nagorno-Karabakh.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)