OCT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia expects investments in its energy sector of $8b over the next few years, media quoted a Reuters interview with Ilia Beroshvili, Georgia’s deputy energy minister. Mr Beroshvili said that most of the investment would be in gas processing plants and hydropower.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
SEPT. 11-18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Canadian mining company Centerra Gold saw its stock price on the Toronto Stock Exchange jump over 16% to 7.34 Canadian dollars, after having slumped in the past three weeks, due to the signing of a new exploration licence in British Columbia. Centerra’s main asset, the Kumtor gold mine, is located in Kyrgyzstan. London listed KAZ Minerals, was down 6% to 152 pence due to low copper prices. Kazakhstan-focused Roxi Petroleum gained 4.4% this week, to 8.75 pence.
Kcell, one of Kazakhstan’s largest telecoms, lost 2% on Sept. 17 after its mother company TeliaSonera said it would leave Eurasian markets.
London-listed Bank of Georgia surged 3.9% this week to 1,907 pence. The GDR stock of Georgia’s TBC Bank lost 6.5% this week in London, down to $9.25 per share, though it had fallen to $9.11 on Sept. 14.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
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
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
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
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — If oil prices remain steady at roughly $50/barrel, Kazakhstan’s state oil and gas company, Kazmunaigas will post a profit of 75b tenge ($279m) in 2015, Sauat Mynbayev, the company chairman, told the Interfax news agency. In 2014, the company posted a profit of nearly 200b tenge ($743m at the current rate). Mr Mynbayev said the government’s decision to let the tenge float free against the dollar has helped contain losses.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – TeliaSonera, the Swedish telecoms company, wants to sell its stakes in mobile phone companies across the Central Asia and South Caucasus region after a series of high-profile corruption and bribery allegations dragged down its operations.
The Stockholm-based company owns stakes in Azercell, Geocell, Ucell, Kcell and Tcell and analysts said that any telecoms company looking to pick up a bargain may be able to buy its assets cheaply.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Iranian ambassador in Tashkent, Ali Mardani Fard, told news agency RIA-Novosti it wanted to increase by three or four times its trade volumes with Uzbekistan. The statement, while vague on detail, underlines Iran’s potential impact on trade in the region with its re-emergence into the global economy.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Chinese Dongfang Electric plans to build a 150 MW thermal power station in Georgia, Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili said during a trip to Beijing. The cost of the project is estimated at around $200m. China has expanded its investments in the South Caucasus.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan will begin construction on the multi-billion- dollar gas pipeline running from its fields in the east of the country to India in December, Reuters quoted an unnamed government official as saying. This is the strongest indication yet that work is about to being on the so-called TAPI pipeline.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
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
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
