Tag Archives: hydrocarbons

Output at BP’s ACG field falls

FEB. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bucking expectations BP said output from its Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil field in Azerbaijan continued to fall in 2014. BP said oil output at ACG, which is essential to Azerbaijan’s overall output, fell to 31.5m tonnes in 2014 from 32.3m tonnes in 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)

Kazakhstan cuts oil export tax

>>Slump in global oil prices triggers tax cut>>

FEB. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will slash its oil export duty by 25% to help companies manage a sharp drop in energy prices, economy minister Yerbolat Dossayev said.

The measure is part of a package of proposals designed to help Kazakhstan’s economy weather an increasingly nasty economic downturn. Energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik also said that taxes on miners would be cut soon.

Currently oil exporters pay $80 to ship a tonne of oil out of Kazakhstan. The government will cut this to $60.

It’s a drastic step for Kazakhstan which still relies heavily on oil exports for its revenue. Drastic but, possibly, unavoidable. Oil prices have halved in the past seven months, forcing spending cut backs and budget cuts.

The sharp drop in oil prices also creates another problem for Kazakhstan. It makes the more expensive projects, such as the Kashagan project in the Caspian Sea, unprofitable. Dropping export tax may go some way to addressing this problem.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Lukoil invests in Uzbekistan

FEB. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian energy company LukOil said that along with a consortium headed by South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering it had won a contract to build a gas processing plant in the Kandym region of south Uzbekistan. LukOil did not say how much the project would cost but it did say that it was its largest investment in Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Tengiz output to rise

FEB. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tengizchevroil, a Kazakh joint-venture with Chevron, is expected to boost oil output by 42% to 38m tonnes by 2021, Kazakh energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik said. This is important news for Kazakhstan as Tengizchevroil is its biggest single oil producer.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Turkmenistan criticises Russia

>>Criticism comes after Russia cuts Turkmen gas imports>>

FEB. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan has criticised Russia as an unreliable gas partner, hinting that it was moving away from its traditional energy alliance with Moscow and was instead looking for new clients and markets.

Ties between Turkmenistan and Russia have been increasingly strained and, perhaps, the Kremlin’s shadow boxing with the West in eastern Ukraine persuaded it to issue the harshly worded statement and speed up its search for new clients.

“Gazprom and its affiliates periodically violate agreements at interstate, intergovernmental and interdepartmental level, leading to the view that unfortunately the major energy company is an unstable partner,” the AFP news agency reported quoting an article on the website of Turkmenistan’s oil and gas ministry.

Earlier this year, Gazprom said that it was cutting imports of gas from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan by up to two-thirds.

Like other countries in the region, Turkmenistan has been trying to deal with the fallout from the decline in the value of the rouble and also the fall in energy prices. President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has ordered his energy executives to search for more clients.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Azerbaijan oil output rises

FEB. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Oil output in Azerbaijan rose for the first time in a year, Reuters quoted an Azerbaijani official as saying. The official, who declined to be named, said the increase was due to a rise in production at the ACG fields operated by BP.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Berdy wants more clients

FEB. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Perhaps feeling the pinch from falling energy prices, Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov wants Turkmenistan to increase the number of foreign clients it has for its gas, the official website turkmenistan.ru reported. Mr Berdmukhamedov has already increased Turkmenistan’s client case since taking over.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

SOCAR Cape wins $65m project

FEB. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — SOCAR Cape, a joint venture between Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR and British oil fields services company Cape, have won contracts to work on the Shah Deniz field worth $65m, media reported. Shah Deniz is a one of Azerbaijan’s largest oil fields.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

S&P downgrades SOCAR

FEB. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded the Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR to a negative outlook from stable because of the decline in global energy prices, Reuters reported. Standard & Poor’s downgraded Azerbaijan’s sovereign rating last month.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

New pipeline contract at Kashagan

FEB. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Italian oil service company Saipem has won a $1.8b contract to replace leaky pipes at the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea, media reported. It said the new pipes would be in place by the end of 2016, allowing oil to flow from Kashagan by the start of 2017.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)