Tag Archives: Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan extinguishes Caspian Sea fire

DEC. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Azerbaijan said they had finally extinguished the fire at Platform No. 10 of the Guneshli shallow water oil rig off the coast of Baku, nearly two weeks after a storm smashed into it causing an explosion in a gas pipe.

Emergency crews also said they had received permission to search for the bodies of 26 missing oil workers from other littoral states bordering the Caspian Sea.

Three workers from the Oil Rocks platform and 23 workers from the Guneshli platform are still listed as missing.

Rescue teams have already found the bodies of seven workers killed in the fire on Dec. 4.

A final death toll of 33 would make it the worst offshore oil platform accident since the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 when 167 people were killed.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Low oil prices collapse current account surplus in Azerbaijan

DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s Central Bank released data that showed a massive drop in its current account surplus for January-September 2015 because of sustained low oil prices.

For the first three quarters of the year, the trade balance totalled $240.5m, down from $9.1b in the same period last year, showing the impact of low oil prices and currency depreciation.

Azerbaijan has run a current account surplus since 2005.

For the Jan.-Sept. period, the Central Bank used an average price of oil of $51/barrel, while last year the price level was set at $102/barrel. The Azerbaijani Central Bank devalued its currency by a third in February.

In particular, the balance of trade in the oil and gas sector was $5.4b, down from $15.1b compared to last year. This is important because oil and gas is a major earner for Azerbaijan.

Still, it could be worse. Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan’s oil exporting neighbour across the Caspian Sea, recorded a deficit in the first three quarters of the year having posted a surplus in 2014.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Deutag wins contracts in Azerbaijan

DEC. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — British services company KCA Deutag won two contracts with BP worth up to $1b for operations, maintenance and engineering work in Azerbaijan. The Aberdeen-based company will work on seven oil and gas platforms operated by BP off the coast of Azerbaijan, including those exploiting the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field and the Shah Deniz gas field, two of Azerbaijan’s most important energy projects. KCA Deutag has worked in Azerbaijan for 20 years, mostly with BP. Rune Lorentzen, president of Offshore at KCA Deutag, said: “These major contract awards build on KCA Deutag’s long standing relationship with BP, and recognise our efforts to deliver both continuous improvement and value to our client.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Azerbaijan to receive Swiss trains

DEC. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swiss railway manufacturer Stadler will deliver two high-speed electric trains to Azerbaijan in the next two months, Javid Gurbanov, head of Azerbaijani Railways, told reporters. Both trains will be used on the 30km Baku-Sumgayit route. In May, Stadler said it had also won a €70m contract to deliver five double decker carriages to Azerbaijan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

ADB funds Azerbaijani infrastructure

DEC. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it would allocate a loan of up to $2.24b to co-finance transport and energy projects in Azerbaijan in 2016- 2017. Out of this loan, the ADB said it would allocate $500m to developing the electricity network and $40m for renewable energy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents meet over N-K

DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met in Bern to discuss peace plans for the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, their first meeting since 2014. There was no sign of any tangible progress from the Bern talks.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Currencies: US dollar, Kazakh tenge

DEC. 16/18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In the weeks leading up to an interest rate increase by the US Federal Reserve Bank on Wednesday, Central Banks in the South Caucasus and Central Asia fretted about possible repercussion on their own currencies.

Janet Yellen, who chairs the Fed, said interest rates would go up by 25 basis points from 0.25% to 0.50%. The Fed had postponed the decision for months and a rate increase was widely expected.

What will happen now to Emerging Markets? The US dollar will inevitably become more attractive to investors, which are likely to pull capital away from Emerging Markets back to the US.

The day after the rate increase, the value of the dollar grew by 1% against six major currencies. This, in turn, could further depress the price of commodities and pressure currencies in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

Shortly after the Fed’s decision, the Georgian Central Bank also raised its interest rates to 8%, up from a level of 7.5%. And the following morning the Central Bank of Azerbaijan issued a statement saying it expects the new rate to affect the currency markets in the region.

Kazakhstan had been on holiday while all this was happening, celebrating the 24th anniversary of its independence, but the impact on the Central Bank and the tenge have been tangible for weeks. The Central Bank twice skipped its monthly policy meetings in November and December, leaving analysts puzzled. On Friday, when Kazakhstan woke up from its festivities, the tenge hit an all-time low of 342.5/$1.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Iran wishes expansion in Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz

DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Iran ministry of energy said it may expand its activities in several international oil and gas fields, including Shah Deniz, Azerbaijan’s biggest gas project.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

US and EU probes Azerbaijan’s human rights

DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US and Europe piled more pressure on Azerbaijan over its human rights record. New Jersey representative Chris Smith introduced a bill in the US Congress that would ban Azerbaijani officials from receiving US visas. The Council of Europe also said it would check whether Azerbaijan is compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Swiss company seals deal with Azerbaijani pipeline project

DEC. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swiss company ABB will provide the IT control infrastructure for the TANAP pipeline which will pump 16b cubic metres of gas from Azerbaijan to Turkey and link up with the Europe-bound gas grid (Dec. 15). ABB has already worked on telecoms systems for pipelines, notably with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. The company did not disclose the value of the contract. TANAP is considered vital to boosting European deliveries of Azerbaijani gas.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)