Tag Archives: hydrocarbons

BP wants contract extension on Azerbaijan’s ACG oil fields

APRIL 1 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bob Dudley, the BP CEO, said that he had signed a letter of intent with the other partners of Azerbaijan’s ACG to extend the contract to operate the country’s biggest oil producing site by 25 years to 2050.

He said a final contract still needed to be signed but that this was likely this year. ACG is critical to Azerbaijan’s economy although its production rate has been falling over the past few years, a drop blamed on aging infrastructure, frustrating Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev.

“I think it’ll happen this year,” media quoted Mr Dudley as saying of the ACG contract extension.

“The contract expires in 2024, but you don’t want activity to drop off in the end of the contract period.”

BP owns a 35.78% stake in ACG (Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli). The other shareholders are Chevron (11.28%), Inpex (10.96%), AzACG (11.65 per- cent), Statoil (8.55 percent), Exxon (8 percent), TPAO (6.75 percent), Itochu (4.3 percent) and ONGC (2.72 percent).

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Condor restarts oil wells in Kazakhstan

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MARCH 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Canada-based Condor Petroleum resumed production at its oil wells in Kazakhstan in the second half of last year, it said in a full-year trading update, around 15 months after it cut production because oil prices had dropped too low to make it economical. Combined output from these two fields, Shoba and Taskuduk, is tiny at 588 barrels per day but it does indicate a renewed confidence in the Kazakh oil sector. Also in Kazakhstan, Condor has applied to extend its exploration licence over the Zharkamys exploration area which officially expired at the end of last year.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Stock Market: Nostrum

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MARCH 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nostrum, the London-listed oil company with assets in Kazakhstan, saw its share price fall 11% to 416p, its lowest price since the start of the year, after full year results for 2016 showed a sharp fall in revenues.

It said that revenue was down by $100m to $348m because of sustained low oil prices. Its chairman, Frank Monstrey, said that 2016 had been one of the most difficult years on record although cost cutting had reduced losses.

“Nostrum has not wavered during one of the most challenging years for the oil and gas industry in over a decade,” he was quoted as saying by media. “We have navigated 2016 with caution and great care to ensure our vision remains intact.”

Nostrum has been one of the best performing Central Asia/South Caucasus stocks this year, surging to an 18-month high of 518p at the start of March.

A drop in oil prices and the tough trading figures from 2016 put a dampener on this buy analysts are still backing it.

Brokerage Credit Suisse gave the Nostrum stock an ‘outperform’ rating with a target price of 535p for this year.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

LSE de-lists Kazakhstan focused oil producer

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MARCH 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tethys Petroleum the Canada- based, Kazakhstan-focused oil producer applied to de-list its shares from the London Stock Exchange. In a statement it said that it was too expensive and of little benefit to maintain its listing on both the London and Toronto Stock Exchanges. It will maintain its listing on Toronto’s Stock Exchange. The de-listing is planned for May 2.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Roxi wants merger in Kazakhstan

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MARCH 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-listed Roxi Petroleum said that it was trying to merge with Switzerland-based Baverstock to create a new company called Caspian Sunrise. Under the offered deal, Baverstock which already owns 10.45% of Roxi, would take control of an additional 41% stake in the new company. The new company’s main asset is the BNG contract area in Kazakhstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

BP appoints new region chief in Azerbaijan

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MARCH 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — BP, the dominant oil major in Azerbaijan, appointed Gary Jones, previously head of drilling as its new regional chief in Baku. Mr Jones’ predecessor, Gordon Birrell, has moved to London as COO for production. BP has been under pressure from Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev to boost the performance of the country’s main oil producing site, Azeri-Chirag- Gunashli (ACG), where output has dropped.

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(News report from Issue No. 321, published on March 20 2017)

China eyes up investment in Uzbek gas field

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MARCH 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — China is eyeing up a major investment in a gas field in southern Uzbekistan, media reported. The gas field is operated by the Uzbek-Chinese JV New Silk Road Oil & Gas Company, which is likely to contract China’s state-run CNPC to develop the site, funded by loans from China. China has been pushing hard to expand its project portfolio inside Central Asia.

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(News report from Issue No. 321, published on March 20 2017)

Turkmen president travels to Qatar looking for investors

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MARCH 15 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov travelled to Qatar to try to charm its leaders into investing in Turkmenistan. The Turkmen economy is under pressure from sustained low oil and gas prices. In particular Qatar’s state news agency said that Mr Berdymukhamedov was looking for investment in the so-called TAPI gas pipeline that will run from gas fields in Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan and India, and also for investment in gas processing plants.

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(News report from Issue No. 321, published on March 20 2017)

Kazakhstan breaks OPEC limit

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MARCH 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan produced more oil in February than it was supposed to under an OPEC-led deal in December aimed at cutting global production, official data showed. It produced 1.718m barrels of oil/day in February, a 2% rise from its output in January. This is 38,000 barrels of oil/day than it had agreed to. Oil prices have fallen on news that oil stockpiles were higher than thought.

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(News report from Issue No. 321, published on March 20 2017)

Azerbaijan’s SOFAZ to invest in real estate

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MARCH 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state oil fund, SOFAZ, has investments worth $1.7b in foreign real estate deals, its press office told the Russian news agency Interfax. SOFAZ started investing in foreign property in 2012.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)