SEPT. 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR is expected to complete the deal to buy the Greek state gas operator DESFA by the end of this month, SOCAR head Rovnag Abdullayev said. SOCAR agreed to buy a 66% stake in DESFA in 2013. The EU is currently considering it.
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(News report from Issue No. 200, published on Sept.17 2014)
SEPT. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan may be about to play an unforeseen, but important, role in Ukraine’s civil war.
Virtually unnoticed by the media, Ukraine’s coal and energy minister, Yuriy Proban, visited Baku for an unofficial meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart. He was, basically, asking for help from Azerbaijan.
Ukraine’s economy is a mess. It had been reliant on coal mining from the Donbass region but with the civil war centred on Donbass, it is now limping along.
It had also earned a substantial fee for being a transit country for oil and gas supplies from Russia to Europe. That too has dried up, meaning that it both has to generate cash from elsewhere and also buy in oil and petrol.
According to analysts, only about 20% of Ukraine’s refining capacity is currently in use.
And this where Azerbaijan, could in theory, come in.
Mr Probin said that he was in Baku partially to ask for Azerbaijan to halp make up the shortfall.
“We could quite quickly increase the processed amounts if Azerbaijan has the available resources,” Russian news agency ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying, referring to the volumes of refined oil produced in Ukraine.
For Azerbaijan, there are two main issues to consider before potentially increasing supplies to Ukraine. Firstly, how to get any oil shipments there, possibly via Georgia’s Black Sea port of Batumi, and secondly how would Russia react? Azerbaijan-Russia relations are already strained. Supplying Ukraine with oil, may strain them further.
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(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
SEPT. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Highlighting its break from Turkmen gas imports, Iran opened what it said was the largest liquefied natural gas storage depot in the world in the north of the country. Iran has said that it wants to reduce expensive gas imports from Turkmenistan, which has propelled itself into the top tier of world gas producers.
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(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
SEPT. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a thinly veiled warning to the BP-led ACG oilfields, Rovnag Abdullayev, head of Azerbaijani energy company SOCAR, said he expected its output to hit 30m tonnes this year and next year. ACG is key to Azerbaijan’s oil wealth but output has been falling.
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(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
AUG. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Reports from the regions said that queues up to a kilometre-long have been forming outside petrol stations as motorist try to re-fuel their cars.
In the northern city of Uralsk only four of 11 petrol stations were serving motorists without vouchers.
A combination of low refining capacity while upgrades are made; the devaluation of the tenge currency, which has made imports more expensive; restrictions on the quantity of imports have reduced petrol supplies.
Officials have said that they are working to bring the situation under control but frustrations threaten to bubble over.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazrbayev relies, to some degree, on the people becoming increasingly rich and comfortable for his popularity. If this starts to reduce, or become visibly impaired, his popularity may drop.
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(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
Petrol shortages have worsened in Kazakhstan over the past few months.
SEPT 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan is one of China’s most important energy suppliers, the deputy director of PetroChina, Lu Gongxun, said in an interview.
His comments, while not breaking news, underline the importance and high regard that China places on its new partner. Turkmenistan has become vital for the Chinese economy, sending around 50 billion cubic metres (cbm) of natural gas to China each year.
And it’s going to become even more important. By 2021, Turkmenistan will be pumping 65bcm of gas to China each year, eclipsed only by Russia.
“Turkmenistan’s rich gas resources facilitate the implementation of China’s goal of diversifying energy imports. The natural gas imports from the Central Asia play an indispensable role in ensuring the state energy security of China,” he Lu said according to press reports.
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(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
SEPT. 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan is on the brink of a Russian-fuelled petrol crisis according to independent news outlet Avesta.tj.
Unnamed sources told Avesta.tj that a collective of 25 Tajik fuel importers had written to President Emomali Rakhmon to tell him that he needed to buy extra fuel supplies to avoid potentially destructive price hikes. The problem, they said, was export restrictions at the Russian refineries where Tajikistan gets its fuel.
The letter said that supplies of A-92 petrol, imported from Russia, and other types of fuel, may be exhausted by mid-September unless he intervenes to ensure previous levels of supply. Apparently the letter attributes the restrictions to parallel shortages in energy rich Russia. Kyrgyzstan is also hurting. Petrol prices in Tajikistan’s northern neighbour have risen by 13.8% in some parts of the country over an eight month period.
Officially, according to the head of the Kyrgyz Oil Traders association, the reason for the restrictions is that multiple refineries in Russia are undergoing repairs simultaneously.
Unofficially, it’s more likely that sanctions imposed on Russia for its actions in Ukraine are biting.
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(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
AUG. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Petrol stations across Uzbekistan are closing because of a lack of fuel supplies, media reported. Media has been reporting for some time that fuel supplies in Uzbekistan have been low. The government has also said that it is no longer able to subsidise petrol causing prices to rise, especially around Tashkent.
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(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
AUG. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has signed another major gas supply deal, underlining its growing status as a regional energy super-power. A Turkish-Japanese consortium will build a $1.7b gas plant in Turkmenistan that will process natural gas into high quality fuel for export. Most of Turkmenistan’s natural gas it pumped to China.
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(News report from Issue No. 197, published on Aug. 27 2014)
AUG. 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran has said that it will stop importing gas from Turkmenistan, media reported. Most of Turkmenistan’s gas flows to China and Iran was not a major client but, even so, the Iranian decision to stop imports will irk. With its economy improving, Iran has said that it plans to ramp up its own gas production.
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(News report from Issue No. 196, published on Aug. 20 2014)
