Tag Archives: Azerbaijan

Kazakh and Azeri VTB change directors

MARCH 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Azeri and Kazakh subsidiaries of Russian bank VTB changed their directors. In Azerbaijan, Vugar Ismayilov left his post of deputy chairman after seven years. In Kazakhstan, Mikhail Oseyevski substituted Mikhail Yakunin as chairman after Mr Yakunin left the bank to join the Russian National Commercial Bank, formerly owned by the government of Crimea, now property of the Russian government.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

BP plans platform closures in Azerbaijan

MARCH 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP plans to close oil production at the West Azeri and Guneshli platforms later this year for routine maintenance work, media reported quoting the company’s head in Azerbaijan. The platforms are part of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli complex which forms the mainstay of Azerbaijan’s oil output. Closing production at the two platforms will dent output.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

KBR wins refinery contract in Azerbaijan

MARCH 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – US-based engineering company KBR said its joint venture in Azerbaijan had won a project management consulting contract for the Heydar Aliyev oil refinery near Baku. SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state owned energy company, is a partner in the joint venture with KBR. The companies did not disclose the value of the contract.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Azerbaijan’s Azerkimya signs contract with Technip

MARCH 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Technip Italy and Azerkimya signed an agreement for the reconstruction of the Sumgayit ethylene-polyethylene plant, 30km north of Baku. Technip Italy is a subsidiary of France’s Technip, an oil service company, which left Azerbaijan in January. Azerkimya is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Greenfields buys field in Azerbaijan

MARCH 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a $57.6m deal, Houston-based Greenfields Petroleum agreed to buy the 66% of Bahar Energy, an energy company exploiting the offshore Bahar oilfield, that it didn’t already own from Azerbaijan’s Baghlan Group. Bahar Energy, registered in Dubai, operates the field with Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR. Upon the completion of the $57.6m deal, Greenfields Petroleum will own 100% of Bahar Energy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Georgia and Gazprom agree deal

MARCH 7 2016, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom reached an agreement with the government of Georgia to supply gas via Armenia, renewing a deal that has bound the two countries together.

The deal had been in jeopardy after negotiations over additional gas supplies to Georgia from Russia were frozen. But both the Kremlin and Tbilisi see the Armenia gas supply arrangement as a useful dialogue forum and forced it through.

After last-minute negotiations, Kakha Kaladze, Georgia’s minister of energy, confirmed a deal.

“We have reached an agreement with Gazprom, now we just have to sign it,” he told media.

The deal, Mr Kaladze said was similar to the earlier one, with Georgia receiving 10% of the total gas Gazprom sent to Armenia. Georgia, which has been transforming itself into a transit hub for the South Caucasus, had wanted cash instead of gas for the arrangement but Russia refused to budge.

The renewed deal between Georgia and Gazprom will also be a relief to Armenia, which is reliant on supplies from Russia. It has struck deals with Iran but Russia remains its most important partner.

Until the first quarter of 2016, Armenia will continue paying s discounted rate of $165/thousand cubic metres, which Gazprom cut by 12.% last September.

Armenia and Gazprom will have to negotiate a new price for gas for the rest of the year.

Earlier, on March 4, Georgia signed a deal with Azerbaijan to receive an extra 500,000 cubic metres of gas. It had been in negotiations with Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia for months to seal the deal.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Azerbaijan’s row over weapons

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian deputy PM Igor Rogozin flew to Baku to meet with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev for talks over a shipment of weapons which Azerbaijan is apparently refusing to pay for, media reported. It was unclear if Azerbaijan didn’t want to pay for the weapons, as a form of protest over military aid Russia has given to its enemy Armenia, or whether it couldn’t pay because of the worsening impact of the economic slowdown.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Interest rates rise in Azerbaijan

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s Central Bank raised its key interest rate to 7% from 5% to support its manat currency, the second interest rate increase in less than a month. It increased rates on Feb. 15 to 5% from 3%. The manat currency has lost 50% of its value in the past year. This is the highest rate since 2009.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Azerbaijan launches joint military exercises

MARCH 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani and Turkish air forces launched joint exercises, media reported, highlighting the close relations between the two countries. Azerbaijan and Turkey regularly hold military exercises together. Azerbaijan is still officially at war with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey has fallen out with Russia over the shooting down of a Russian fighter-jet last year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Editorial: Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Georgian civil unrests

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The economic downturn that has hit Central Asia and the South Caucasus in the past two years has dented people’s purchasing power.

Most people earn salaries in their local currency but these have lost between 50% and 25% of their value in the past months.

This has triggered some social unrest, especially in the South Caucasus. In January, people in Azerbaijan took to the streets to protest against rising food prices and stagnating wages.

The same reasons were voiced by miners in Tkibuli, Georgia, who went on strike for two weeks asking for a 40% increase in salaries. Now reports have emerged from Yerevan where market stall owners briefly scuffled with police over rental prices.

In Central Asia, protests are less frequent and, generally, silenced quickly by the authorities. Last month, however, dozens of Kazakh women banging pots and blowing whistles protested in Almaty about mortgage repayments.

The crisis is starting to bite hard and the people are growing increasingly restless.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 270, published on March 4 2016)