Tag Archives: Azerbaijan

TeliaSonera companies reassure Kazakh, Uzbek, Azerbaijani customers

ALMATY, SEPT. 18-21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Shortly after Swedish telecoms TeliaSonera said last week it was leaving Central Asia and the South Caucasus, its local brands were quickly reassuring worried customers they were not quitting altogether.

Azercell, Geocell, Kcell, Tcell and Ucell, TeliaSonera’s assets in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, all issued statements saying they will continue to operate.

Rumours still swirled but they focused on who would takeover TeliaSonera’s assets. Turkcell, which through Fintur is already a stakeholder in Azercell, Geocell and Kcell, is favourite. TeliaSonera also owns a stake in Fintur.

“To explore our strategic options to acquire the remaining stake in Fintur, we have initiated the process to appoint a strategic and financial advisor,” Turkcell said.

Analysts had mixed reaction. Some said TeliaSonera’s assets would attract decent bids, others that the poor state of the Kazakh economy would undermine their value.

Alexander Vasiliyev, editor of the website Profit.kz said Kcell would be a good buy for a global telecoms company.

“It continues to lay golden eggs, it is the largest player in the Kazakh market,” he told Kapital.kz.

Aivar Baikenov, Head of Research at Asyl-Invest, disagreed. He singled out the drop in the value of the Kazakh tenge, down 40% in a year, as a major problem.

“Kazakhstan is not attractive for foreign investors due to the devaluing tenge. I suppose Kcell could be interesting for local or maybe Russian investors,” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Azerbaijan’s gold output rises

SEPT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Gold production in Azerbaijan increased by 30% between Jan.- Aug. this year to 1.5 tonnes, media reported quoting government data. Gold is not a major contributor to Azerbaijan’s earnings, which is dominated by oil and gas, but it is growing in importance.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Armenia accuses Azerbaijan on civilian killing

SEPT. 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia-backed authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh accused Azerbaijan of shelling a civilian area and killing three women. The accusation marks a heightening of tension around the disputed region. Violence is a feature of the region but civilian deaths are not common.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Azerbaijan warns foreign media

SEPT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Ali Hasanov, an aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, warned foreign media outlets they needed to ensure their reporters carried the correct accreditation to work in Azerbaijan. If foreign journalists didn’t have the correct accreditation on them, Mr Hasanov said, police would arrest them. Azerbaijan has made it increasingly difficult for foreign media to operate freely.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR revenues to drop

SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company SOCAR said it would transfer less cash to the national budget this year because a fall in oil prices had dented its revenues. This is a blow to Azerbaijan which is heavily reliant on revenues from oil and gas for its income.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

BP suspends Azerbaijan’s oil platform

SEPT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — BP said it will suspend operations at the Chirag oil platform, in Azerbaijan’s sector of the Caspian Sea because of planned maintainence work. BP didn’t specify when Chirag would resume operations. Chirag, together with Azeri and Guneshli, is one of the most important oil fields in Azerbaijan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Comment: To monitor or not, that is the question

SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) -Has Europe’s democracy watchdog, the OSCE, shot itself in the foot by deciding not to monitor Azerbaijan’s up and coming parliamentary election?

Certainly it must have been irritating that the Azerbaijani authorities had told the OSCE that it can have barely half the number of monitors it had asked for on the ground. But that feels like scant justification for pulling out altogether.

Instead, this feels personal.

The Azerbaijani authorities have been in menacing mood, pressuring anybody in their way and this has included the OSCE. Earlier this year, the OSCE closed its office in Baku under pressure from the Azerbaijani authorities.

Now it feels that the OSCE has been able to exact some sort of payback by crying foul over monitor numbers, pulling its observation team from Azerbaijan’s Nov. 1 election altogether and drawing yet more international condemnation on Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev.

But this is, surely, an opportunity missed.

Would it not have made more sense to monitor the election as best as possible with limited resources. That way the West can improve its understand of what is going on in Azerbaijan and maintain closer contact with ordinary Azerbaijanis.

There will be other Western vote monitoring teams at the election but without the size and experience of the OSCE team, the West is severely limited and this is a crying shame.

By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Azerbaijan’s oil output falls in Jan.-Aug. by 2.8%

SEPT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s oil production has fallen by 2.8% in the first eight months of the year, a source at the statistics committee told Reuters.

The data is more economic bad news for Azerbaijan. Oil underpins the economy and a drop in production means a drop in revenue. A regional economic decline has already hit Azerbaijan hard, forcing it to cut government budgets and to devalue its manat currency this year.

The source told Reuters that a decline in output from BP’s Azeri, Chirag and Guneshli (ACG) oilfields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea had pulled its overall output down.

Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev stepped in and ordered BP to stop the output decline at ACG. BP has had sporadic success at stopping the drop in output at ACG, although it has now restarted its slow, steady decline.

Daily oil output at the ACG fell to an average 641,000 barrels/day (bpd) in the first half of 2015 from 656,000 bpd in the same period in 2014 and 661,000 bpd in the first quarter of this year, BP said. ACG makes up most of Azerbaijan’s oil production.

Output at ACG slowed during Q2 when BP closed the West Azeri platform for maintenance. It has now closed the Chirag platform for maintenance. A BP spokesperson said operations at the Chirag oil platform would be suspended from sometime in the autumn. It was not clear when Chirag would re-start operations.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Azerbaijan’s company signs deal with Gazprom

SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan Methanol Company (AzMeCo) signed a deal with Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom for the supply of 2b cubic metres of gas to its methanol production plant. Under the agreement, Gazprom will supply 100% of AzMeCo’s needs at the plant in Garadagh, a district just outside Baku.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

US stamps of Azerbaijan musicians

SEPT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US Postal Service has issued two stamps commemorating famous Azerbaijani cultural figures, media reported quoting the Azerbaijani consulate in Los Angeles. The stamps are dedicated to the 130th birthday of composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli and the 100th birthday of singer Rashid Behbudov. Azerbaijani official in the US have been lobbying hard to promote the country.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)