SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian carrier ArmWings will start a flight connection between Yerevan and Brussels in December. ArmWings, which does not yet have a website, said tickets can now be purchased at travel agents.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rustam Suleimanov, director at Kazakhstan’s state-gas distributor KazTransGas, said that the country is ready to export gas to China from Q4 2016. Over the past few years, Kazakhstan has built up transport capacity to link its gas fields with the main Central Asia- China pipeline, which has pumped gas from Turkmenistan since 2009. Kazakhstan will use Line C of the pipeline, which has a capacity of 20b cubic metres.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Belgorkhimprom, a Belarusian firm in charge of building the Garlyk mining and processing plant in eastern Turkmenistan, has not paid wages to its workers for three months, according to opposition website Alternative News of Turkmenistan. Belgorkhimprom has not commented. The Garlyk plant will mostly service state-owned Turkmenkali, which produces potash, a fertilizer. Economic hardships have pushed back several industrial projects in Central Asia since the price of commodities collapsed in mid-2014.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s customs committee said that car imports in Jan.-Aug. 2016 fell by 6.1% compared to the same period last year. In total, Azerbaijan imported 3,454 vehicles, mostly passenger cars. Over the past three years, car imports have fallen sharply in Azerbaijan, after the manat currency has lost around half its value during two devaluations and the ditching of the US dollar peg.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Martin Andersson, Chaarat Gold’s largest shareholder, became non-executive chairman of the British Virgin Island-registered mining company developing gold projects in Kyrgyzstan. Mr Andersson is the owner of Labro Investments, which holds a 25.2% stake in Chaarat.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 20/21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s oil and gas exports have fallen this year, according to government sources. Gas exports for the first seven months of 2016 amounted to 4.6b cubic metres, 8.6% lower than in the same period last year, Interfax reported. Oil exports in Jan.-Aug. fell to 33.3m tonnes, down 4.2% compared to last year, government sources told Reuters. Oil exports in particular are vital for the Azerbaijani economy. With both the value and volume of oil exports dropping, government revenues have dried up.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Guernsey-based oil company Tethys Petroleum never seems to catch a break.
This time last year it had just turned down a takeover offer from Amsterdam-based Nostrum Oil & Gas, also focused on Central Asia. But its financial outlook remained uncertain and it was still on the market for investors.
In the last months of 2015, the obscure Kazakh oil company Olisol came forward with a proposal to buy a large share of Tethys in exchange for much-needed cash.
This appeared to be the salvation that Tethys, buffeted by the slump in oil prices, needed. Tethys saluted the prospective deal as a life-saving opportunity.
But then hiccups in Kazakhstan and legal disputes with its partners in Tajikistan began churning up Tethys’ road to stability.
Now it faces legal prosecution in Kazakhstan and an arbitration in Tajikistan, which could turn ugly.
Plus repeated delays in securing funding from Olisol have put investors and managers under severe stress. This can easily be spotted by looking at the company’s stock price, which jumps and falls at every update.
In mid-August, its stock price nearly doubled in one day, reaching a four-month high, after Tethys announced that it had cleared an important regulatory hurdle in its recapitalisation efforts.
Now, Tethys’ stock price has settled back at 1.5p/share, an average it has kept in the second half of 2016, quite far down from the 64p it traded at in March 2012.
But those were the days of high oil prices and big spending. It’s a very different picture now.
With oil prices still hovering at around $45/barrel, the future looks as uncertain as ever for Tethys.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s energy minister, Kanat Bozumbayev, said that production at the offshore oil field of Kashagan will resume on October 23, three years after its sudden interruption due to leaky pipes. Kashagan, discovered in 2000, is one of the largest finds in the oil industry’s recent history. Its reopening has been touted as crucial to give the Kazakh energy sector the boost it needs to move into the World’s premier division of producers.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)
SEPT. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia has intensified talks to increase gas supplies from Uzbekistan, as it looks to buy more Central Asian gas. Alexei Miller, chairman of Russia’s gas company Gazprom, met with Alisher Sultanov, his counterpart from Uzbekistan’s state-owned energy company Uzbekneftegaz, in Moscow. Last year, Gazprom imported 6.4b cubic metres of Uzbek gas. Gazprom has been steadily increasing its dealings with Uzbekistan, once seen as the most awkward of the Central Asian states. The death this month of Uzbek Pres. Islam Karimov may also improve bilateral relations.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)
SEPT. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s foreign trade turnover in Jan.-Aug. 2016 fell by 7.6% compared to the same period last year, on account of lower imports, Tajikistan’s Central Bank said. Tajikistan exported goods worth around $600m, a decrease of 1.9% compared to last year. Notably, Tajikistan imported less than $2b- worth of goods in the first eight months of the year, a 9% decline compared to 2015.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)
