SEPT. 9 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – French energy company Total said it had found a major new gas field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. In a statement Marc Blaizot, Total’s exploration VP, said: “This discovery could be very significant in terms of resources.” The discovery was made at the Absheron gas field.
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(News report from Issue No. 56, published on Sept. 12 2011)
SEPT. 9 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The EU is itching to sign a final deal with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan for gas supplies to its proposed Nabucco pipeline project.
Nabucco is at the heart of the EU’s future energy policy. It wants to reduce its dependency on Russia for gas supplies and instead develop a pipeline network from the Caspian Sea, across the South Caucasus to the centre of Europe.
At its core, the plan relies on gas from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan but despite years of lobbying they are still considering their options and there is still no final deal.
Now, though, the EU appears to mean business. On Sept. 12 2011, the EU said it wanted to negotiate a final treaty as a united bloc with both Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan on filling Nabucco which aims to have a capacity of 31b cubic metres/year, one of the biggest in the world.
Azerbaijan has already said it would supply gas and Turkmenistan has hinted that it would but the EU needs to know just how much and when in order to get its ambitious project off the ground.
Part of the delay has been over a pipeline running across the Caspian Sea bed, linking Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, a project that Russia has been against.
Symbolically, the EU’s decision to negotiate a final deal with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan as a united bloc is important too. This is the first time the 27 nation group has attempted to negotiate an energy deal together — again underlining the importance it places on Nabucco.
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(News report from Issue No. 56, published on Sept. 12 2011)
AUG. 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The proposed pipeline running from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan and India (TAPI) inched forward after Turkmen and Afghan officials agreed a number of technical issues, Turkmen state news agency reported. The completion of TAPI will further cement Turkmenistan’s position as the region’s main gas supplier.
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(News report from Issue No. 53, published on Aug. 17 2011)
AUG. 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Attention may have focused on Western Europe and the US but Central Asia’s biggest financial centre, Kazakhstan, did not escape the turmoil that has gripped world financial markets over the last week.
A ratings downgrade for the United States and worries about eurozone debt have spooked investors. There has been a flight to safety — gold and the Swiss Franc have boomed — as investors have become more wary of risk. Not good news for emerging markets, then.
Tellingly, Kazakhstan has been one of the worst hit stock markets in the world. Between Aug. 1 – 9 Bloomberg data showed the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) lost about 22% of its value.
To throw in a few numbers, KASE — which includes the state oil and gas company Kazmunaigas, miner ENRC, copper producer Kazakhmys and the country’s biggest banks — is now valued at around 63% of its mid-February value. Many of the companies listed on KASE have their main listing on the London Stock Exchange where the drop was far less dramatic.
KASE recovered 7% of its value on Aug. 10 but it hasn’t been this low since the start of March 2009 when the world was tentatively starting to emerge from the global financial slowdown.
Of course volatile oil prices play their part in pushing KASE up and down but so does general investor sentiment and they worry about emerging market risk.
KASE may be a relatively minor stock market but it is still a decent weather mast. That said, emerging markets with their potential for high growth rates will always attract investors.
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(News report from Issue No. 52, published on Aug. 10 2011)
JUNE 30 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian gas monopoly Gazprom appointed Timur Kulibayev, the favoured son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, as one of its directors. Mr Kulibayev was appointed head of Kazakhstan’s $80b sovereign wealth fund earlier this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 47, published on July 6 2011)
JUNE 21 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – So, an end to the row over Kazakhstan’s participation in the Karachaganak gas field is in sight.
It isn’t official yet but sources at the St. Petersburg economic forum told news agencies the consortium operating Karachaganak had agreed to give a 5% stake to the Kazakh government while the Kazakh government had agreed to pay for another 5% stake.
A deal, perhaps, and an important one.
Karachaganak, in the north-west of the country on the border with Russia, is one of the biggest gas fields in the world. It also produces a fair amount of oil. It is important both for Kazakhstan’s economic development and for investors as a weather mast of government sentiment.
Over the last few years, Kazakhstan has argued it should be given stakes in major energy projects in the country and Karachaganak was the only one it still wasn’t involved with. The government said that when the original contracts were drawn up in the 1990s, it was in a weak negotiating position and the Western companies had taken advantage of that.
The partners in the Karachaganak project are currently — BG Group and Eni with a 32.5% stake each, Chevron with 20% and Lukoil with 15%. They have been negotiating with the Kazakh government over its entry since 2009 when tax claims started appearing against the consortium.
The row had even threatened to derail the project as the government had refused to sign off on the next phase of its development in May until it had been given a stake. With the end of the ownership argument in sight, Karachaganak and investors can all move on.
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(News report from Issue No. 45, published on June 21 2011)
JUNE 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The consortium of foreign energy companies developing the Karachaganak gas field in Kazakhstan have ceded a 10% stake to the Kazakh government, sources at an investment forum in St. Petersburg told media. A deal would end the two-year dispute.
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(News report from Issue No. 45, published on June 21 2011)
JUNE 1 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian gas giant Gazprom nominated Timur Kulibayev, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s son-in-law, to be one of its directors, media reported. Mr Kulibayev has become increasingly powerful. He is considered a potential successor for Mr Nazarbayev and this year he became head of Kazakhstan’s $80b sovereign wealth fund.
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(News report from Issue No. 43, published on June 6 2011)
MAY 25 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The South Yoloten gas field in Turkmenistan is the second-largest in the world, the state media’s website said. Chinese firms are developing the field and plan to start pumping gas to China in 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 42, published on May 30 2011)
MAY 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek President Islam Karimov visited Ashgabat for the second time in seven months to sign agreements with Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdimukhamedov. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, both major gas producers, have increasingly worked together to open new markets and leverage more economic power.
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(News report from Issue No. 39, published on May 9 2011)
