Tag Archives: hydrocarbons

Kazakhstan’s energy firm schedules Kashagan work

MARCH 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazmunaigas, Kazakhstan’s state- owned energy firm, said work at the Kashagan offshore oil field is on schedule and it expects the field to be ready for production by October 2016. Kazmunaigas’ CEO Sauat Mynbayev said he is still unsure about the volumes that Kashagan will produce in November-December 2016. The consortium developing Kashagan, which includes Kazmunaigas, Shell, Exxon, Total, Eni, Inpex and CNPC, has been replacing damaged pipes.

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

Uzbek-Chinese JV plans to start production

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek-Chinese joint venture New Silk Road Oil & Gas Company Ltd plans to start production at the Karakul gas condensate fields in Uzbekistan’s Bukhara region by the end of the year. The leadership of the Uzbekneftegaz National Holding Company, which is a co-founder of the joint venture told Trend it will award drilling tenders in late April-early May 2016.

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

Stock market: Roxi Petroleum, KAZ Minerals, Centerra

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan-focused oil company Roxi Petroleum hit the headlines with a daily increase in its share price of over 10%, although the company did not publish updates regarding its operations at the BNG contract area in Western Kazakhstan.

Still rallying on positive results and an uptake in commodity prices, KAZ Minerals also fared well. The Motley Fool financial website said that, together with Glencore and Fresnillo, KAZ Minerals “could be a great long- term play on a mining sector recovery.”

Centerra Gold, a Kyrgyzstan-based Canadian miner, performed poorly again, and the company blames it on the uncertainty regarding negotiations the ownership structure with the Kyrgyz government.

“The uncertainty about renegotiating the future ownership profile of the Kumtor mine with the Kyrgyz government weighed heavily on the stock,” Mining Weekly quoted CEO Scott Perry as saying.

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

Azerbaijan’s president praises TANAP

MARCH 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the TANAP gas pipeline project running from the Turkey-Georgia border to the Turkey-Greece border was one of the country’s most important projects. TANAP forms the middle section of the so-called Southern Gas Corridor that will pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe. The TANAP shareholders are Azerbaijan’s SOCAR (58%), Turkey’s BOTAS (30%) and BP (12%).

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

Qatar oil meetings miss Kazakhstan

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan has not been invited to a meeting in Qatar set for April 17 where major world oil suppliers are due to discuss freezing output levels at their current rates, energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik said. The apparent snub for the FSU’s second biggest oil producer underlines its role as an oil price taker rather than an oil price maker. Oil producing nations are trying to coordinate a response to drag oil prices off record lows.

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

Zenith signs agreement with Azerbaijan’s SOCAR

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A subsidiary of Canadian oil company Zenith Energy signed a production sharing agreement with Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR to develop three onshore oil fields. Zenith Aran Oil and SOCAR had started negotiations last year. Zenith will have an 80% share in the Muradkhanli, Jafarli and Zardab fields for the next 25 years. SOCAR will retain the remaining 20%.

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

Azerbaijan’s oil exports drop

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan exported 5.2m tonnes of oil in January and February, down from 5.5m tonnes in the same period last year, official customs data reported. Azerbaijan is reliant on oil exports to fund its budget. The drop in oil prices has hit its economy hard, forcing the government to cut budgets. The problem for Azerbaijan is that a lot of its oil fields are aging.

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

Directors of Tethys in Kazakhstan leave

MARCH 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – As planned after the announcement of the deal with Olisol, two executives at Guernsey-based Tethys Petroleum will step down. John Bell and Alexander Abramov will now be co-non-executive chairmen. Mr Bell and three other directors said they will not seek re-election at the next general meeting at the end of May.

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

Turkmen Pres. flies to Islamabad to boost bilateral ties and talk about TAPI

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov flew to Islamabad for talks on the TAPI gas pipeline shortly after a high-level delegation from Tajikistan had met up with senior Pakistani officials, a sign of just how important Pakistan has become to Central Asian affairs.

According to reports from Islamabad, the talks between Mr Berdymukhamedov and Pakistani PM Sharif Nawaz were friendly and wide- ranging, focusing not just on the proposed TAPI gas pipeline that is supposed to run to India across Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The two leaders signed eight documents, on a number of different issues such as blocking funds to terrorism and fighting money laundering, and also praised progress on developing road links under the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation

And this is important. The TAPI pipeline has brought Pakistan and Turkmenistan closer together, just as the CASA-1000 power transit route plan has brought it closer towards Tajikistan, facilitating discussions on a range of bilateral issues.

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

Kazakhstan’s Ozenmunaigas hints at job losses

ALMATY, MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a thinly veiled warning, an official from the Mangistau government in west Kazakhstan said that Ozenmunaigas, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s state-owned Kazmunaigas, could start cutting jobs to maintain profitability during the current economic downturn.

Elubai Abilov, representative of the local government, said that the company had not hired new staff since 2014 because it cannot afford to employ new workers.

He then said: “Ozenmunaigas will try to protect every job for its employees.”

Local analysts immediately read these comments as jobs being under threat, although there was no word from Ozenmunaigas itself.

In February, Maksat Ibagarov, Ozenmunaigas’ general director, had said: “We are not planning downsizing or wage cuts, but we are in a difficult situation. To be a profitable company, it is necessary to cut costs and increase oil production.”

Ozenmunaigas operates oil fields near Zhanaozen where riots killed at least 14 people in 2011. Employment is a highly sensitive matter at the company.

Last year, Kazmunaigas wrote off its Ozenmunaigas assets.

Kazmunaigas also said that during the first three quarters of last year Ozenmunaigas operated at a loss, as its average costs were around $65/barrel, while oil prices averaged $55/barrel.

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