Tag Archives: business

Highland appoints new CEO for Russia and Kyrgyzstan operations

JAN. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Jersey-based Highland Gold Mining said it appointed a new CEO to oversee its operations in Russia and Kyrgyzstan. Highland’s operations are mostly focused in Russia, but it is exploring the Unkurtash gold mine, located near Jalal-Abad in Kyrgyzstan. Denis Alexandrov, formerly Highland’s finance director, takes over as CEO from Valery Oyf who remains a director.

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(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Azerbaijan’s Azercell sacks staff

JAN. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azercell, one of the largest telecoms companies in Azerbaijan, said it will lay off 60 workers, around 8% of its employees in the country. Azercell is TeliaSonera’s subsidiary company in Azerbaijan. It said in a statement that the worsening economic conditions in the country are directly affecting the company’s financial health.

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(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Kyrgyzstan’s GDP growth slows

JAN. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s economy grew at 3.5% in 2015 compared to 4% in 2014, the state statistics committee said. The statistics committee said that the main reason for the slowdown was an 8% drop in production at the Kumtor mine. Production slowed at Kumtor, which is owned by Toronto-listed Centerra Gold, when it enlarged the mine.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)

Kazakhstan’s Tsesnabank makes Russia deal

JAN. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tsesnabank, one of the largest banks in Kazakhstan, bought an 83% stake in Russian Plus Bank, after both countries’ Central Banks gave the green light for the deal. According to Russian law, Tsesnabank will have to submit another offer for the remaining 16.7% of Plus Bank over the next days. UAE-based Linex Global owns 14.7% of Plus Bank. Tsesnabank has increased its stake over the past six months. In June 2015, it owned 20% of Plus Bank. It has since bought out several other minority shareholders. Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, mayor of Astana, owns Tsesnabank.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)

Turkmenistan retrieves another oilman body

JAN. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Turkmen authorities retrieved the body of another missing Azerbaijani oil worker in the Caspian Sea. A storm hit an oil field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea shortly before Christmas, triggering a fire that killed 33 people. It was the worst offshore oil rig accident since Piper Alpha, in the North Sea, in 1988. Some of the bodies have been found in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)

Tajikistan says it’s unhappy with progress on oil and gas field

DUSHANBE, JAN. 12 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik government said it was dissatisfied with the progress of the Bokhtar Operating Company, a joint venture between Tethys Petroleum, Total and CNPC which is exploring the country’s most promising oil field.

Murod Jumazoda, head of the government’s Geology Department, said the consortium was developing the site too slowly and that this could result in the government seizing 25% of the licensed area.

“They [the companies forming the joint venture] will have to return 25% of the oil and gas exploration area to the government this year,” Mr Jumazoda said at a press conference.

According to Tajik law, the government has the right to take back up to 25% of a licensed oil and gas area that has failed to produce within seven years of the license being granted. But Tethys, which is listed on the London stock exchange, disagreed with the government’s interpretation of the law.

“The first relinquishment is not due until 2020,” a PR agency speaking on behalf of Tethys told The Conway Bulletin.

This may become controversial as it was in 2008 that the Tajik government awarded Tethys an exploration licence to explore a 36,000 square km area around 100km south of Dushanbe for oil and gas.

But, and this is probably what Tethys’ PR agency was alluding to, the present composition of the Bokhtar Operating Company, owned by Tethys Petroleum, CNPC and Total, was finalised in 2013.

According to Tethys’ calculations, the field holds around 27.5b barrels of oil equivalent of recoverable resources. For Tajikistan, which is resource poor, this is a tantalising prospect.

Tethys is the lead operator of the Bokhtar Operating Company.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)

Teliasonera writes off $622m of value from its Uzbek operations

JAN. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swedish telecoms company TeliaSonera effectively slashed the value of its assets in Uzbekistan by 5.3b Swedish kronor ($622m) to speed up a fire sale of its unit which it considers toxic after it was heavily implicated in a major corruption scandal.

Since last September, TeliaSonera has sought to sell off its businesses in Central Asia and the South Caucasus so that it can concentrate on its core mobile and data services in Europe.

TeliaSonera is under investigation in the Netherlands, Sweden and the US over its acquisition of mobile licenses in Uzbekistan in 2007. Prosecutors say the deal involved paying large bribes to the Uzbek president’s eldest daughter, Gulnara Karimova. Rival Norwegian telecoms company Telenor has also been accused of bribing Uzbek officials.

The cut in value of Teliasonera’s Uzbek assets, which will be booked on its Q4 2015 operations, is part of a 7.2b Swedish kronor ($845m) cut in the company’s global assets.

“We are well on track shaping the new TeliaSonera and the process to reduce our presence in Eurasia continues,” Teliasonera CEO, Johan Dennelind, said in a statement.

“As a consequence of this progress and current status in the overall divestment process, Region Eurasia will be reported as discontinued operations. When doing this we are obliged to change valuation method for these operations. This has resulted in an impairment charge relating to our operations in Uzbekistan.”

In its forthcoming 2015 annual report, due later this month, TeliaSonera will block out results from the Eurasia region and tag it “held for sale”.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)

Czech company boosts deliveries to Uzbekistan

JAN. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Czech engineering company Armatury Group delivered valves worth €3m ($3.3m) to Eriell, a service company operating in Uzbekistan’s oil fields, according to the group’s press release. Eriell, a Russian drilling company, is a supplier to another Russian company, Lukoil, which operates several oil and gas projects in Uzbekistan. The valves will be installed at a compressor station in the South Kemachi oil and gas condensate field, near Uzbekistan’s border with Turkmenistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)

Car sales drop in Kazakhstan

JAN. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Association the Kazakh Auto- mobile Business said authorised dealers in the country sold cars worth $1.9b in Jan.-Nov. 2015, about 43% less than than the same period last year. The Association also said that sales of cars produced in Kazakhstan fell by 50% to around $355m.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)

UK’s Alpha and Uzbekistan’s Fayz Farm sign deal

JAN. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — UK-based Alpha Pharm Trading and Uzbekistan’s Fayz Farm signed a deal to create a joint venture to produce medicines in the Navoi free industrial economic zone. The joint venture, called Novo Farm Komplekt, will invest $3.7m in a factory and distribution centre for pharmaceutical products.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)