AUG. 30 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The CEO of French energy company Total, Christophe de Margerie, said that Kashagan, the Caspian Sea oil field that Kazakhstan has pinned its economic hopes to, will begin production shortly, Bloomberg News reported. Total is one of the Kashagan shareholders. Production at Kashagan is several years overdue
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(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)
AUG. 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — After several months of deliberation, the Kazakh government signed into law a new energy saving code that should turn the country into a beacon of green, power-saving efficiency in the former Soviet Union.
For foreign investors and business, the code — dubbed Energy Efficiency 2020 — is something of a quandary. It will create opportunities for some businesses but also additional cost for industry.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev decreed that by 2015, the country needed to reduce its power consumption by 10%. Energy Efficiency 2020 aims to cut this by 25%.
Mr Nazarbayev’s motivation for this decision may have been EXPO-2017, a global opportunity to showcase his gleaming capital, Astana. Part of the EXPO-2017 message is clean, efficient energy.
In any case, the ramifications will mainly be felt by large industry. Kazakh media reported that under the new code it will process energy audits of 2,000 industrial sites.
Those businesses that don’t pass the audit will have to buy and implement a series of energy saving technologies and techniques.
Another part of Kazakhstan’s society that will be heavily targeted to improve energy efficiency is insulation in Soviet-era housing. This is often leaky, spilling out much of the heat generated by the centrally-controlled system.
It is unclear who will foot the bill for this ambitious target, but the government said it has already allocated $7.1b for various energy saving projects.
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(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)
AUG. 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR wants to buy 5m tonnes of oil from Russia’s Rosneft, media quoted SOCAR chairman Rovnag Abdullayev as saying. The plan is to reverse the flow of the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline to pump the oil to Azerbaijan where it will either be refined or exported to Europe.
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(News report from Issue No. 149, published on Aug. 26 2013)
AUG. 21 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Petrol stations in Uzbekistan have restricted fuel sales to counter a reported shortage, media reported. The shortages haven’t been adequately explained but may be due to stockpiling. A website linked to the government said fuel prices, normally controlled, may soon shoot upwards.
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(News report from Issue No. 149, published on Aug. 26 2013)
AUG. 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Relations between Azerbaijan and Russia have generally been cool for the past decade or so. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Baku on Aug. 13 only served to underline this.
Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, has looked to balance the interests of the country’s former master, Russia, with that of Europe, a major energy client. In previous years there has been talk of Russia buying up Azerbaijan’s gas supplies but this never materialised. Instead, Western energy firms have tightened their hold on Azerbaijan’s vast Caspian Sea energy supplies by buying up stakes in fields and building pipelines.
And despite rhetoric of improved ties between Moscow and Baku before a trip by Mr Putin, his first to the Azerbaijani capital in seven years, this general trajectory appears set.
Russia’s Rosneft had talked of an energy deal with SOCAR, the Azerbaijani state-owned energy company, but this never materialised. Sources told media outlets that a vague agreement had been signed but there were too many differences to commit to anything more meaningful.
These differences are varied. Some are personal, others strategic — last year Russia and Azerbaijan failed to agree on a lease extension for a Russian radar base — and others are commercial. Azerbaijan-Russia relations still need some mending.
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(News report from Issue No. 148, published on Aug. 19 2013)
AUG. 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rompetrol, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s state-owned Kazmunaigas, will open 22 new petrol stations in Georgia by the end of 2014, media reported. This shows that Kazmunaigas is continuing to use Rompetrol to expand overseas and also that it believes that demand for petrol in Georgia is growing. Rompetrol already operates 70 petrol stations in Georgia.
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(News report from Issue No. 148, published on Aug. 19 2013)
AUG. 7 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — BP stemmed an output drop at Azerbaijan’s Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil fields. In the first three months of 2013, ACG’s output was 662,000 barrels per day (bpd), rising to an average of 672,000bpd for the first half of the year, Reuters reported. ACG accounts for most of Azerbaijan’s oil production and is vital to its economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 147, published on Aug. 12 2013)
JULY 30 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR (20% stake), BP (20%) and Total (10%) joined the consortium developing the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) that will pump gas from the Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea to Italy, TAP said. The other members of the consortium are Statoil (20%), Fluxys (16%), E.ON (9%) and Axpo (5%).
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(News report from Issue No. 146, published on Aug. 5 2013)
JULY 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia’s state gas company Gazprom completed its purchase of Kyrgyzgas, Kyrgyzstan’s gas distributor, for $1. Reuters quoted an anonymous source as saying that Gazprom will invest $600m updating Kyrgyzstan’s dilapidated gas infrastructure network. The deal also increases the Kremlin’s control over Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 146, published on Aug. 5 2013)
AUG. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Romserv, part of the Rompetrol group, has won a $1b contract to modernise the refinery at Pavlodar in northern Kazakhstan, media reported. Kazakh state energy company Kazmunaigas bought a 75% stake in Rompetrol from Romania in 2007. The Pavlodar refinery was built in 1978 and is one of three in Kazakshtan.
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(News report from Issue No. 146, published on Aug. 5 2013)
