NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — French company Air Liquide will form a joint venture with Kazakhstan’s state-owned Kazmunaigas to increase production of industrial gases at the country’s refineries. The agreement, signed during President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s visit to France, will improve the performance of Kazakhstan’s three refineries at Atyrau, Pavlodar and Shymkent.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Stock markets saw commodities-focused companies lose terrain this week, despite a brief surge in oil prices above $50/barrel on Tuesday.
Kazakhstan-focused oil company Roxi Petroleum lost 16% in one week closing at 7.88p, perhaps driven down by technical issues slowing down its drilling operations at the BNG contract area in the western part of the country.
After peaking at 122.4p on Tuesday, mining company KAZ Minerals shares were down 8.5% to 105.7p on Friday. KAZ Minerals used to be called Kazakhmys.
In Toronto, Centerra Gold shares lost 3.5% to 7.15 Canadian dollars, continuing a 3-week slump following debates on the formation of a new government in Kyrgyzstan. The Kumtor gold mine in Kyrgyzstan is Centerra’s main asset and the company is a major taxpayer in the country. Centerra has said, though, that production at Centerra would be down this year on earlier forecasts.
A new government has now been formed in Kyrgyzstan, hopefully giving Centerra a stable partner to work with.
Shares in Bank of Georgia were down 4.5% to £19.11 on Friday.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Inflation in Kazakhstan grew by 5.2% in October, compared to the previous month, after businesses increased their prices on goods and services across the country to balance a devaluation in the value of the tenge currency. The tenge has now lost half its value against the US dollar since Feb. 2014. Year-on- year inflation now stands at 9.4%.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
OCT. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — State-owned Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOG- MEC) signed a deal with local authorities in Kazakhstan to explore for rare earth materials in the Karaganda and Kostanai regions. Earlier this year, the Japanese ministry of industry closed a deal to build a rare earths production facility in the north of the country. Kazakhstan holds one of the world’s largest reserves of rare earths.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Swedish telecoms company Tele2 and Kazakhstan’s state-owned Altel said they will form a joint venture. The new joint venture will start operations in 2016 and will hold exclusive rights to the country’s 4G network.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Low-cost airline Flydubai launched its first flight to Astana, expanding its routes in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Astana will be the third destination in Kazakhstan for Flydubai, a company owned by the Government of Dubai. In Kazakhstan, Flydubai already flies to Almaty and Shymkent.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
OCT. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Net profits at Kazakhstan’s Eurasia Bank fell to 2.6b tenge ($9.1b) in the first nine months of the year, a fall of 67% from the same period in 2014. The bank, owned by businessmen Alexander Mashkevich, Alijan Ibragimov and Patokh Chodiev, declined to disclose further details of the results. In 2014, net profit fell by 13% compared to 2013.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-traded KMG EP said sustained low oil prices had halved revenues in the first nine months of the year compared to the same period in 2014, a heavy warning for Kazakhstan that the near-term outlook for its economy is poor.
KMG EP saw its revenues fall, in US dollar terms, by 54% to 349b tenge ($1.8b), mirroring a 48% fall in Brent oil prices. Net profit dropped to 138b tenge ($703m), a fall of 49% in US dollar terms.
And it said that oil prices would remain weak.
“There is a risk that prices for the domestic market supplies for October to December 2015 will be significantly lower than the prices set in September 2015,” KMG EP said in the report.
KMG EP is among the top three producers of oil in Kazakhstan and participates in several international oil and gas projects.
It’s one of the Kazakh government’s main cash earning companies and its financial performance acts as a barometer on Kazakhstan’s economy. If Kazmunaigas, and KMG EP, is doing well, the Kazakh economy is generally doing well too.
KMG EP also said that in tenge terms, its salary costs have increased by 22%.
“This was largely due to an indexation of salary for production personnel by 7% in January 2015, the introduction of a Unified System of Wages for production employees from April 2014 onwards, a 10% increase in wages related to the devaluation of the Tenge from April 2014 onwards, and an increase in production bonuses from 25% to 33% for supporting production personnel from September 2014 onwards,” KMG EP said.
The Kazakh Central Bank stripped the tenge of its peg to the US dollar in August, effectively allowing the currency to devalue by 25%,a second devaluation in two years which has halved the tenge’s value. Businesses have had to promise employees salary increases to compensate for the fall in the value of the tenge, pushing up inflation across the country.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh Senate passed a bill that will regulate financing for NGOs, a move criticised by the West as cutting back on civil liberties. The new bill is similar to a law passed in Russia and limits NGOs’ access to funding from overseas.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
OCT. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – NASA published satellite pictures of earthworks found in north Kazakhstan which have baffled scientists. The photos of the Turgai region show massive stone circles. It’s unclear exactly what they represent, how old they are or who built them.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
