Tag Archives: construction

Turkmenistan wins lawsuit against Turkish construction company

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A World Bank tribunal rejected a $567m claim by Turkish firm Ickale Insaat against Turkmenistan that the government had deliberately derailed several construction projects, a rare victory for a Central Asian government against private companies.

The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) said the claim was not substantiated by concrete cases of interference.

“There is no basis for the claims in the BIT [a 1992 Turkey-Turkmenistan bilateral treaty to protect investments], which does not create any cause of action under general principles of international law,” the ICSID wrote in its 175-page analysis of the case, specifying that the Turkish company will also have to pay $1.7m, or 20% of Turkmenistan’s total legal fees.

Ickale claimed that Turkmenistan had breached a dozen construction contracts signed in March-November 2007 to supply mainly consulting services on a series on projects.

The Turkmen side denied the accusations and instead said that Ickale failed to deliver on its promises to complete its works by 2009.

Ickale was supposed to deliver machinery and service construction works at two luxury hotels, four schools, one cinema in Ashgabat, and several other projects.

Ickale listed at least eight of these projects as “completed” on its website. Earlier in January, a Stockholm arbitration court had ruled against the Kazakh government in a case

brought by Estonian firm Windoor for reneging on a building deal in Astana.

Relations between Turkish firms and the Turkmen government might be worsening as the opposition newspaper Alternative News Turkmenistan alleged that another construction company Ilk Insaat had planned to sack around 1,200 workers in March-April.

When contacted by The Conway Bulletin, Ilk Insaat’s parent company declined to comment.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Azerbaijan’s Azerkimya signs contract with Technip

MARCH 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Technip Italy and Azerkimya signed an agreement for the reconstruction of the Sumgayit ethylene-polyethylene plant, 30km north of Baku. Technip Italy is a subsidiary of France’s Technip, an oil service company, which left Azerbaijan in January. Azerkimya is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

EBRD finances Kazakh road

FEB. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it is giving Kazavtozhol a $103m loan to widen an 80km stretch of road in southern Kazakhstan on the main south-north highway. The EBRD has been an important driver of infrastructure projects in former Soviet Central Asia since the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Georgia awards contract to build $2.5b Black Sea port to US-Georgian group

FEB. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia awarded a US-Georgian consortium the contract to build a $2.56b deepwater port at Anaklia on the Black Sea, a project that will bolster the country’s role as a major trade link between East and West.

The Georgian government chose the Anaklia Development Consortium (ADC) over two separate bids submitted by China’s state-owned PowerChina and another by Russo- Georgian venture Anaklia Industrial Eco-Park.

ADC is a joint venture between Tbilisi-based TBC Holding and US- based Conti. Mamuka Khazaradze, chairman of TBC Bank, owns TBC Holding.

Kurt Conti, Conti CEO, said in a statement: “We are looking forward to breaking ground and working with the government of Georgia to help forge new paths from Asia to Europe as well as unlocking the economic potential of Georgia’s neighbours and landlocked nations in the Caucasus.”

For Georgia, the project underlines its role as transit country for goods flowing between Asia and Europe. It hosts oil and gas pipelines running from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, has developed its road and rail networks and wants to leverage its position on the Black Sea.

And the government, which has also pledged $100m to the project, said that the deepwater port was vital.

“This will create completely new opportunities for Georgia to make full use of the Silk Road and the South Caucasus transport corridor,” PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili told the press.

The plan will also transform Anakalia, a small town on the border with the breakaway region of Abkhazia.

The construction phase of the port will create an estimated 3,400 jobs, ADC told media, and a total of 6,400 people will be employed at the port when it is up and running.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 267, published on Feb. 12 2016)

Turkmenistan reasserts neutrality

FEB. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukahmedov wants to tinker with Turkmenistan’s constitution to strengthen its commitment to neutrality, official media reported. Last month, in a similar move, Mr Berdymukhamedov approved a new military doctrine which reasserted Turkmenistan’s neutrality. Turkmenistan’s neutrality has been challenged by a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

China expresses interest in Kazakh Mangistau

FEB. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Alik Aidarbayev, head of the Mangistau region of western Kazakhstan, said that only China has expressed serious interest in paying for the construction of a new oil refinery. The Mangistau region has been working on plans to build Kazakhstan’s fourth refinery for years. Mr Aidarbayev’s comments are important because they show both the financial power of China and the relative weakness of Russia. Kazakhstan has been looking to boost its refinery capacity for some time. It currently has three refineries.

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(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

LG Group scraps project in Kazakh city

JAN. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – South Korea’s LG Group dropped a $4.2b project to build a petrochemical plant near Atyrau in western Kazakhstan because of continued low oil prices. The cancellation is perhaps the biggest project to be ditched during the current economic slowdown.

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(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Kazakhstan orders to pay $25m for ditching building plans

ALMATY, JAN. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An arbitration court in Stockholm ordered a Kazakh state- owned company to pay €22.7m ($24.8m) to Estonian construction company Windoor for reneging on a building deal in Astana.

The case is important as more and more infrastructure projects in Kazakhstan grind to a halt with the deepening economic slump.

In the Stockholm case, Windoor, which specialises in glass-aluminium structures, filed a lawsuit against state-owned Diplomat Stroi Servis for €18m ($19.7) after it failed to pay for work it had carried out on a conference centre.

In 2012, Windoor and Baltiiski Dom, a Kazakh construction company, agreed a deal to build a 40,000 square metres diplomatic conference centre behind the Kazakh ministry of foreign affairs.

In an interview via email with The Conway Bulletin, Mailis Lintlom, the Windoor chairman, said: “By early 2014, it became clear that the construction of the project was behind schedule and that Windoor would not be able to start the [installation] work of the facade at the agreed time.” In February 2015, in line with the worsening economy in Kazakhstan, Windoor was told that the project had been “frozen”, triggering Windoor’s arbitration action.

At the end of December 2015, the Stockholm court said Diplomat Stroi Servis, owned by the Economic Department of Kazakhstan’s ministry of foreign affairs, will have to pay a €4.7m premium on Windoor’s court claim.

A Kazakh court will have to enforce the payment and Windoor is still waiting for a judicial confirmation of the award.

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

Kyrgyzstan to construct pipeline to China

JAN. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan will begin construction work on a new gas pipeline running to China in March, media reported quoting Deputy Economy Minister Aibek Kaliev. The pipeline, which will take several years to build, will complete a route running from gas fields in east Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and on to Kyrgyzstan and China.

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

Deutag wins contracts in Azerbaijan

DEC. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — British services company KCA Deutag won two contracts with BP worth up to $1b for operations, maintenance and engineering work in Azerbaijan. The Aberdeen-based company will work on seven oil and gas platforms operated by BP off the coast of Azerbaijan, including those exploiting the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field and the Shah Deniz gas field, two of Azerbaijan’s most important energy projects. KCA Deutag has worked in Azerbaijan for 20 years, mostly with BP. Rune Lorentzen, president of Offshore at KCA Deutag, said: “These major contract awards build on KCA Deutag’s long standing relationship with BP, and recognise our efforts to deliver both continuous improvement and value to our client.”

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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)