Tag Archives: business

Uzbekistan Airways starts flights to Tokyo

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — State-owned airline Uzbekistan Airways said it started a new weekly service between Tashkent and Tokyo Narita. The company also said the frequency will double to two flights per week from the end of March. Relations between Uzbekistan and Japan have been improving and Japanese businesses are investing heavily in Uzbekistan’s energy and mining sectors.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Azerbaijan’s ACG oil output falls

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP said it expects flat oil output this year from its Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil fields off the coast of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea. Last year, ACG produced 31.3m tonnes of oil, slightly down from 31.5m tonnes in 2014. BP also said it plans two rounds of maintenance later this year. ACG is the mainstay of Azerbaijan’s oil production. Its output has been falling.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Armenia reforms stock exchange

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Armenian government wants to reform its stock exchange to include currencies and other forms of financial trade. In an interview with Reuters, the director of NASDAQ OMX, Konstantin Saroyan, said: “We are concerned that there are no currency operations on the stock exchange and we are trying to change our business model.” Mr Saroyan also said demand for US dollars has declined due to the economic downturn.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakh miner corporation appoints new head

MARCH 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bakhtiyar Krykpyshev replaced Eduard Ogai as chairman of Kazakh miner Kazakhmys Corporation. Kazakhmys Corporation is the privately-held offshoot of the now-defunct Kazakhmys and is controlled by Vladimir Kim. KAZ Minerals, the publicly-traded heir of Kazakhmys, is the other offshoot of the corporate reorganisation.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Uzbekistan to modernise pipelines

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s state-owned gas firm Uztransgaz will invest $506m modernising its pipeline system. Uztransgaz will spend around $266m building a new section of the 10b cubic metres pipeline from the Ferghana valley to Tashkent which was damaged last year after an explosion. Uztransgaz also said it will modernise one of its compressor stations at the Central Asia-Centre export pipeline and build a new one for a total cost of $215m.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Sixth Energy buys stake in Kazakhstan-focused company

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Canadian oil company Sixth Energy Ltd bought a 26.5% stake in Calgary- based Caspian Energy for $320,000. Sixth Energy now owns 60.6% of Caspian Energy, a company active in north-western Kazakhstan. Caspian Energy holds an exclusive licence to explore the North Block, near the Alibekmola, Zhanazhol and Kenkiyak oil fields.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

India snubs Turkmen TAPI pricing

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – India’s oil ministry said in a statement that it will not sign a contract with Turkmenistan that fixes gas prices for supplies coming through the prospective TAPI pipeline. The Indian government said it will not repeat the unprofitable relationship it had with Qatar, which exported liquefied natural gas at a fixed prices. This became costly when oil prices collapsed in 2014 driving down spot prices for gas.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Canadian gold miner Alhambra takes Kazakhstan to court

ALMATY, MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Canadian gold miner Alhambra Resources said it was seeking damages against Kazakhstan’s government, via the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, for the bankruptcy of its Kazakh subsidiary.

This is the second major arbitration case against Kazakhstan in the past few months. In January, the Kazakh government had to pay $25m compensation to Estonian builder Windoor after a court in Stockholm ruled it had broken a contract in 2012 to build a conference centre for its foreign ministry.

A sharp economic downturn has hit Kazakhstan hard and forced the government to cut budgets and projects, undermining, to some extent, its credibility as a client.

The company accused the Kazakh government of acting in an “unfair and inequitable” way against both Alhambra and its subsidiary Saga Creek.

Alhambra said the Kazakh government had broken its terms of contract with Saga Creek, imposed excessive fines on it and withheld mining licences.

“This conduct by the Government has frustrated Alhambra’s investment activities in Kazakhstan, drained the Corporation’s resources and culminated in the bankruptcy of Saga Creek,” it said in a statement. Kazakhstan has not commented.

In 2011, a high court in the Akmola region of northwest Kazakhstan cancelled a $1.6m tax bill that local government had sent to Alhambra.

The new arbitration, the company said, had been initiated after a Kazakh court on March 3 upheld the a bankruptcy order imposed on Alhambra’s subsidiary in December.

Saga Creek and Alhambra own a 25-year licence to mine the Uzboy gold field in north Kazakhstan near the border with Russia.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakh company buys into Tethys

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh energy company Olisol acquired control over additional shares of Guernsey-based Tethys Petroleum and is awaiting permission from the Toronto Stock Exchange to reach a 15.8% stake in the company. Under a facility agreement Olisol will also buy additional shares, bringing its ownership in Tethys to around 42%. Oilsol agreed a finance deal with Tethys earlier this year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Tajik Air buys numbers of planes from Airbus

MARCH 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to boost the status of state- owned Tajik Air, Tajikistan’s deputy PM Azim Ibrohim said that the government had bought a number of planes from Europe’s Airbus. State-owned Tajik Air and privately-owned Somon Air are the only two airlines in the country and both use Boeing-made aircrafts. Countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus have been using airlines to promote their national brands.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)