Tag Archives: construction

Swiss company seals deal with Azerbaijani pipeline project

DEC. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swiss company ABB will provide the IT control infrastructure for the TANAP pipeline which will pump 16b cubic metres of gas from Azerbaijan to Turkey and link up with the Europe-bound gas grid (Dec. 15). ABB has already worked on telecoms systems for pipelines, notably with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. The company did not disclose the value of the contract. TANAP is considered vital to boosting European deliveries of Azerbaijani gas.

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

SinoHydro builds Armenia road

DEC. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Chinese state-owned SinoHydro said it will build a 27.5km section of a north-south road in Armenia for €74m ($81m). Once the full upgrade is finished in 2019, the complete 556km-long road, called the North-South Corridor, will connect the town ofBavra on Armenia’s border with Georgia to Meghri on Armenia’s border with Iran. The total cost of the project is €381m ($417). Various inter-governmental financial institutions and the Armenian government are paying for the project.

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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)

Georgia completes railway

DEC. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia has completed its 178km section of the revamped Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway that links the Caspian Sea with the Turkish border, media reported. Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey agreed to upgrade the railway line 10 years ago to boost trade. The upgrade work has been delayed and has overrun its budget.

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(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)

Azerbaijan’s Sofaz to diversify portfolio

NOV. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Without giving specific detail, Israfil Mammadov, the deputy executive director of Azerbaijan’s sovereign wealth fund Sofaz told Bloomberg News that the fund would be diversifying its investment portfolio next year. Sofaz has already diversified into real estate, gold and equities. Earlier this year, Sofaz bought a landmark shop on one of Tokyo’s most well-known retail streets.

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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

SOCAR-Fugro joint venture to upgrade Azerbaijan’s refinery

NOV. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR said its joint venture with Dutch oil and gas services company Fugro will work on the modernisation of a refinery near Baku. SOCAR Fugro will provide geophysical and geotechnical services for the modernisation work. Azerbaijan has earmarked around $1b for reconstruction work on the country’s largest refinery.

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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan move up ‘Doing Business’ survey

ALMATY, OCT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Central Asian countries fared strikingly well in the latest Doing Business report published by the World Bank, possibly reflecting a drive to attract investment to fight off worsening economic conditions across the region.

The World Bank report singled out Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as among the ten most improved countries in the world. Georgia fell from 15th to 24th place but its overall score was deemed an improvement over last year’s. All other countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus improved their ranking.

According to the World Bank’s assessments. Kazakhstan, 41st in the rankings, made registering a property transfer faster and easier, and Uzbekistan made it easier to start a new business and access credit. It was ranked at 87th, up 54 positions from last year.

In an interview with the Bulletin, Valentina Saltane, Private Sector Development Specialist at the World Bank said Kazakhstan had reformed seven key areas.

“The only area that needs real improvement is cross-border trade,” she said. “Uzbekistan adopted three major reforms, one of which , starting a business, dates back to 2013, but became accessible to private businesses only at the end of 2014.”

Other analysts also said that Kazakhstan had been working hard to speed up various technical reforms.

Alex Nice, Eastern Europe editor at the EIU, said: “Kazakhstan has announced a range of technical reforms, to try to improve the investment climate, in response to the economic slowdown. So it’s not surprising it has moved up the rankings.”

But Mr Nice also sounded a note of caution. He said that developing countries, Kazakhstan included, hire consultants just to advise them on how to move up the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ survey.

“Kazakhstan invests a lot in promoting its image abroad, and may well have hired consultants to advise it on how to achieve a move up the rankings,” Mr Nice continued. “That doesn’t mean that the challenges to doing business in Kazakhstan have fundamentally changed.”

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(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)

Japan builds plant in Turkmenistan

OCT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation will build a 400 megawatt gas-fired power plant in north Turkmenistan, a plant that will both increase electricity production and also extend the reach of the Turkmen power grid. The deal, worth $300m, was signed during Japanese PM Shinzo Abe’s visit to Turkmenistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)

Austria’s Poerner to build Azerbaijan’s capital bitumen plant

OCT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan hired Austrian Poerner Group alongside Texas-based Fluor Corp. to build a bitumen plant, a deal poised to boost Azerbaijan’s output of petroleum products.

Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR contracted Poerner to design the 400,000 tonnes/year plant, which Fluor Corp will build over the next decade.

Earlier this year, Azerbaijan said it wanted to modernise its oil, gas and petrochemicals processing plants near Baku. In March, Reuters quoted the US embassy in Azerbaijan saying the new complex will cost around $16.5b.

Neither Poerner nor Fluor have disclosed the value of their contracts with SOCAR, but their contribution will be important to boost Azerbaijan’s bitumen, or asphalt, production. Bitumen is a product of oil refining and an important commodity for the entire South Caucasus region. Bitumen’s main use is in road-building. Azerbaijan, as well as Armenia and Georgia, has committed itself to improving and expanding the country’s road network.

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(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)

Korea-Uzbekistan JV complete giant gas processing plant

OCT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uz-Kor Gas, a joint venture between South Korean and Uzbek companies, has finished building a $3.9b natural gas processing plant in Uzbekistan, a project that will improve commercial and diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Located in the Karakalpakstan region of north-western Uzbekistan, the Ustyurt Gas Chemical Complex will become the biggest petrochemical complex in Europe and Asia. Ustyurt includes a new gas field and a petrochemical plant. Its production will be mostly earmarked for the export market.

Companies from South Korea and Uzbekistan have been working on the project since 2006 through a joint- venture that includes Lotte Chemical, part of the Lotte Group, state-owned Korea Gas and Uzbekistan’s energy company Uzbekneftegaz.

Huh Soo-young, CEO of Lotte Chemical, said production would begin in 2016.

“From extracting liquefied natural gas in the upstream, to cracking and processing LNG into petrochemical products in the downstream, we have successfully built up a vertical integration system,” Mr Huh told the Korea Herald.

The plant will receive around 3.6mn tonnes of liquefied natural gas each year from a field in Surgil, around 100km away from the complex.

Lotte Chemical has predicted it will earn around 1tn won ($890mn) each year from the new project. Mr Huh said the complex would only be profitable as long as energy prices stay at current levels.

“As long as crude oil prices remain above $40, our petrochemical products based on low-cost ethane will remain competitive in the global market,” he said.

Uzbekistan and South Korea have been improving their commercial ties. In May, Uzbek president Islam Karimov used his visit foreign trip after winning re-election to travel to South Korea to close deals worth $7.7b.

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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Japanese holding to build Turkmen power plant

OCT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Sumitomo Corporation, a Japanese holding focusing on industrial production, said it will build a $330m thermal power plant in the north- western part of Turkmenistan. Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, another Japanese company, will provide the gas turbine for the new 400 megawatt plant. Japanese PM Shinzo Abe will visit Turkmenistan at the end of October to attend the signing of the deal.

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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)