JAN. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s emergency ministry confirmed that it had recovered two bodies from the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea thought to be those of workers washed overboard during a storm and fire on an oil rig in December. 33 workers died in the fire, the worst offshore oil rig platform disaster since the North Sea Piper Alpha fire in 1988.
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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
JAN. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Scottish welder Michael Mcfeat was seeing in the New Year at the canteen in the Kumtor gold mine high up in the Tien Shan mountains when he sent a message back home to friends in Scotland jokingly referring to the chuchuk, a horse-meat sausage, as a horse’s penis.
It was a joke that was intended to raise smiles back home, and it may well have done, but Mcfeat’s error was to make it on an open Facebook account. Locals workers read his joke. They were furious.
Mcfeat is back home now, lucky to have escaped a beating from angry locals, while the Toronto-listed Centerra Gold that runs the mine is dealing with the latest PR setback in its relations with Kyrgyzstan.
The Kyrgyz may be overly sensitive to foreigners laughing at their national identity but, 25 years after the fall of the USSR, it is still a young country. Instead, the onus should be on international companies working in Kyrgyzstan and the rest of Central Asia to educate their foreign staff and also to impose some all important social media rules and guidelines.
After all what the chuchuk is to the Kyrgyz, the haggis is to the Scots.
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(Editorial from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
DEC. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Indian gas distributor GAIL said it wants to buy a 5% stake in the TAPI pipeline project, two weeks after construction started on the 1,700km pipeline that will run from Turkmenistan to India. TAPI will pump 33b cubic metres of Turkmen gas to India per year, via Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is expected to come online in 2019. Turkmenistan’s state-owned Turkmengaz is the operator of the project.
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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
JAN. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia announced a tender to build its first wind farm in conjunction with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The project is estimated to cost $35m, with the EBRD giving a $25m loan. The wind farm will consist of 10 turbines and produce two megawatts of power. States in Central Asia and the South Caucasus are investing in wind power to help meet power demand.
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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
DEC. 22-29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Norway’s Agility, Britain’s KCA Deutag and British-Azerbaijani joint venture SOCAR-Cape all signed contracts with BP and Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR to provide services to off- shore energy projects in the Caspian Sea. These separate deals show Azerbaijan’s reliance on Western technology to operate and service its oil and gas projects.
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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
DEC. 23 2015, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s largest hydropower station, Toktogul, broke down after a power surge knocked out three of its four generators, forcing the government to buy extra electricity from Kazakhstan.
The breakdown at Toktogul is embarrassing for Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atmabayev because three months ago, after the completion of a transmission line linking the power- generating south with the power consuming north, he proclaimed Kyrgyzstan was self sufficient in power. Kyrgyzstan also aims to export power to Pakistan from 2018.
Engineers working on Toktogul, which was built in 1976, said they expected the power plant to be back up and running from mid-January.
In the meantime, Kyrgyzstan announced a deal to buy electricity from neighbouring Kazakhstan to cover the shortfall.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
DEC. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government said it has allowed local telecom operators to provide 4G services to their customers . State-owned Kazakhtelecom’s subsidiary Altel had been the only company that could use the 4G network. Other companies may now offer 4G data services, giving a much-needed competitive boost to Kazakhstan’s telecoms sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
JAN. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia exported 39% less wine in 2015 than it did in 2014 because of a worsening recession in Russia and a protected civil war in Ukraine. In a press release, Georgia’s National Wine Agency said that wine exports to China had increased by 22% to 2.7m bottles but that sales to Russia had fallen by 51% to 18.3m bottles and to Ukraine by 56% to 3.4m bottles.
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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
JAN. 4 2016, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Amid low energy prices and economic strains, Russia’s state- owned Gazprom is reshaping its gas relations with countries in the South Caucasus and Central Asia.
It is effectively buying gas from Central Asia to sell on to Europe, China and, partly, to the South Caucasus.
Gazprom confirmed it will stop gas imports from Turkmenistan and, at the same time increase purchases from neighbouring Uzbekistan to 3.1b cubic metres.
“The basis for this decision is the changed situation on the international gas market, as well as certain economic and financial issues arising from the Gazprom’s exports,” it said in a statement.
Gazprom didn’t release price details with either Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan but its statement did confirm shifting alliances in Central Asia. Previously, Russia had imported heavily from Turkmenistan. This flow, though, has fallen as relations between the two countries grew increasingly strained. Turkmenistan wants to supply Europe with gas, via Azerbaijan and Turkey, putting it in direct competition with Russia.
Last year, Turkmenistan effectively signalled that Russia had stopped paying for its gas.
But Gazprom needs to buy Central Asian gas to honour its deals with China and Europe, as well as making new deals in the South Caucasus.
Gazprom already supplies Armenia with gas and is negotiating export deals with Georgia and Azerbaijan who both need to meet domestic power consumption.
Rovnag Abdullayev, president of Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR, met with Alexei Miller, Gazprom’s CEO, in December to discuss 2016 volumes.
“The possibility of increasing [Russian gas] supplies taking into account the prospects for growth in natural gas consumption in the country was considered,” SOCAR said in a statement.
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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
DEC. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Chinese consortium has supplied 11 locomotives to Uzbekistan as part of an ongoing partnership. CNTIC and CNR Dalian fulfilled a $44.39m contract they signed with Uzbekistan’s railway company in 2011. A loan from China EximBank financed 95% of the cost.
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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
