Tag Archives: business

Kazakhstan may delay modernising refineries

MARCH 13 2015 (The Bulletin) – Kazakhstan may delay modernisation work at its three refineries until 2016 because a cut in the price of rival Russian oil products has knocked their profitability, Yerlan Koibagarov, down-stream director at Kazakh state energy company KazMunaiGaz, was quoted by media as saying.

Upgrade work to the refineries is considered essential in the long run to boost output and guarantee the quality of Kazakhstan’s domestically produced oil products. Demand for oil has soared over the last few years, while output hasn’t been able to keep up.

“If this trend continues I really don’t know if we will have enough monetary funds for the modernisation or not,” the government-owned Astana Times newspaper quoted Mr Koibagarov as saying. “Maybe we will have to prolong the term.”

At the beginning of this month, Kazakhstan slapped a 45 day ban on the import of oil products from Russia. The problem is that the value of the rouble has dropped by around half over the past six months, while the Kazakh Central Bank has tried to maintain the value of the tenge. Global oil prices have also plunged.

Refineries and oil products are an important issue in Kazakhstan.

To head off general discontent about the lack of petrol, the Kazakh government has made self-sufficiency for oil products a major plank of their policies.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 223, published on March 18 2015)

Halyk Bank profit rises

MARCH 17 2015 (The Bulletin) – Halyk Bank, one of Kazakhstan’s largest banks, posted a 58% increase in net profit in 2014 mainly due to a reduction in bad debt. This is good news for Kazakhstan’s banking sector which has been battling to reduce its proportion of bad debt.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 223, published on March 18 2015)

Kazagy issues profit warning

MARCH 17 2015 (The Bulletin) – London-listed Kazakh packaging company Kazgazy issued a profit warning and said sales in Q1 were down 18% on Q1 2014. Kazagy blamed the fall in the value of the Russian rouble and said it will be forced to cut jobs and implement other cost savings.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 223, published on March 18 2015)

Kazakh region criticises ArcelorMittal

MARCH 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The government of the Karaganda region has said that ArcelorMittal’s temporary move to knock 25% off its workers’ wages at its steel plant in Temirtau last month was illegal, the Tengrinews website reported. It has filed a lawsuit against ArcelorMittal, one of Kazakhstan’s biggest foreign investors.
ENDS