Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Kazakh labour figures down

OCT. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Over 11,000 people lost their jobs in Kazakhstan in the first nine months of the year, the ministry of social development said. The ministry monitors only a sample of private businesses, so the total numbers could be larger, according to Radio Free Europe. A chart produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit showed that the overall size of the Kazakh labour force is shrinking.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

S&P drops Kazakh Kashagan

OCT. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – International ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said it will stop including the Kashagan oil field in its economic forecasts for Kazakhstan because of continuous delays in production.

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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Business comment: Opec, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan

OCT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — When OPEC calls, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are unlikely to answer.

OPEC, an organisation for oil exporting countries, is seeking to coordinate a cut in production with non-OPEC countries to lift oil prices.

Acting as a cartel, OPEC can determine production levels in order to control global oil prices. It has done so repeatedly over the past decades.

Strapped for cash and reliant on oil exports, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are not OPEC members and do not enjoy the same market power as Saudi Arabia or Russia.

Because their action would have little effect on oil prices they are unlikely to play OPEC’s game, according to Daniel Yergin, vice- chairman of the IHS consulting company and one of the most authoritative voices on Caspian energy issues.

“I think they will not cooperate. They (Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan) are typical non-OPEC countries who simply produce at a maximum they can,” Mr Yergin told Reuters.

Lower oil prices and ageing fields have pushed production numbers down in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan (minus 2% and 3% respectively) and they simply cannot afford to arbitrarily cut back production in concert with OPEC.

The economies of these two Caspian countries are heavily reliant on hard currency revenues from oil exports. They’ll want to keep oil production at a maximum.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

VimpelCom sells kit in Kazakhstan, Armenia

OCT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian telecoms company VimpelCom said it is selling 50,000 phone towers across the former Soviet Union for $5b. VimpelCom, headquartered in the Netherlands, hired several banks to broker the deal. Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are among the countries involved in the deal.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Kazakh PM dies from cancer

OCT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Several high-profile personalities attended the funeral in Atyrau, west Kazakhstan, of former Kazakh PM Nurlan Balgimbayev, who died on Oct. 14 aged 67 from cancer. PM Karim Massimov read a message from Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Kazakhstan’s space agency enters join venture

OCT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Meyrbek Moldabekov, deputy head of Kazakhstan’s space agency KazCosmos, said it has entered a joint venture with French aircraft manufacturer Airbus to build satellites. Airbus owns 27.5% of the venture and will be jointly responsible for operations at an assembly plant to be built in Kazakhstan by 2017.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Kazakhstan and Russia agree to explore north Caspian for oil

OCT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian President Vladimir Putin flew to Astana where he signed a deal with Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev to jointly explore and develop the north Caspian Sea for hydrocarbon reserves.

The deal, signed before a meeting of leaders from the former Soviet Union, came roughly a week after Kazakhstan also hosted Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. He signed deals with Mr Nazarbayev to increase cooperation in energy and aerospace. The timings of the two leaders’ visits to Astana highlights just how pressured the diplomatic space that Kazakhstan has to operate in is. It needs to keep relations with both Ukraine and Russia, who are locked in a proxy war in eastern Ukraine, sweet.

“We have big plans on joint oil production in the Caspian Sea,” Mr Putin said after signing the deal.

Kazakhstan and Russia also signed a deal for the Russian military to test missiles that would spread debris over a patch of Kazakhstan.

A week earlier, Mr Poroshenko had been in town talking up ties with Kazakhstan. This week, Kazakhstan’s ministry of defence said that it had signed a deal with Ukraine to boost cooperation in aviation.

Mr Nazarbayev has previously touted Kazakhstan as the ideal place for trying to thrash out a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. There has been no formal move to hand this role to Kazakhstan but but leaders do apparently appear relaxed about flying to Astana in quick succession.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct.16 2015)

Kazakh fugitive Ablyazov is set for Russia

OCT. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – French PM Manuel Valls ordered Kazakh fugitive Mukhtar Ablyazov to be extradited to Russia to face fraud charges. French police arrested Ablyazov in a villa on the south coast in 2013. He had been on the run since being found guilty of contempt of court in London in 2012. He fled Kazakhstan in 2009 after being accused of stealing $6b from BTA Bank. Kazakhstan wants him extradited to face charges of trying to organise a coup.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct.16 2015)

UN criticises Kazakh NGO law

OCT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A bill under review by Kazakhstan’s parliament threatens the independence of NGOs in the country, the UN said. The bill is being likened to a law in Russia which cut NGOs’ ability to receive funding from overseas. If the law is passed, the Kazakh government will control funding to all civil society groups.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct.16 2015)

KazTransGas talks with Georgia

OCT. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — KazTransGas, Kazakhstan’s state owned gas distributor, warned Georgia it might take their dispute over its subsidiary to international arbitration if Georgia failed to restart negotiations. KazTransGas is looking for compensation for the $130m it spent on its subsidiary KazTransGas-Tbilisi in 2006-09 before the Georgian government took control of the company.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)