NOV. 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Italian energy major ENI has started to hand out the first contracts to build a shipyard at Kuryk on Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea coast. The shipyard is designed to increase ship building capacity and generate jobs. It was announced as a joint-venture with KazMunaiGaz last year, when the Kazakh economy looked stronger.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)
NOV. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kairat Kelimbetov, head of the Kazakh Central Bank, said the tenge currency would not be devalued for at least three years. The comments, made at a conference in Almaty, were the strongest indicator yet that, despite a falling rouble, the tenge would not devalue for the second time this year.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan will donate $100m to Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev said during a trip to Astana to sign a new electricity supply deal. Mr Atambayev described the aid to Kyrgyzstan as can act of fraternal support from Kazakhstan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Luxury carmaker Rolls Royce has opened its first showroom in Kazakhstan, media reported, underlining how attractive the country still is for high-end goods despite a recent downturn in the economy. Rolls Royce is owned by Germany’s BMW and joins most other carmakers with a showroom in Almaty.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Replacing leaky pipes at the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea will cost around $3b, Reuters reported quoting a senior Kazakh official. Kashagan was to be the project that propelled Kazakhstan into the top tier of global energy suppliers instead it has run hugely over budget and time.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Protests continued across parts of Kazakhstan over petrol shortages. One protest, captured in a photo essay on the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website showed four men pulling a Soviet-era car to a petrol station near Almaty with a donkey cart.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The sharp fall in the price of oil has acted as a wake-up call for Kazakhstan, economy minister Kairat Kelimbetov said in an interview with the FT.
Virtually admitting that Kazakhstan had been caught off guard by the decline by roughly a third in the price of oil since June, Mr Kelimbetovsaid that the government was the economy and to make it planning measures to shore up more attractive to investors.
“Next month the government will be ready to announce some counter cyclical fiscal policy, with big plans in infrastructure,” he said in the interview in Almaty.
Economists have warned that a devaluing rouble and falling oil prices will combined to knock Kazakhstan’s growth rate.
And the falling economy is also knocking investor confidence. Energy analyst Sergei Smirnov said that with Brent oil prices falling to a four year low of $82/barrel it makes projects such as Kashagan unprofitable.
“Offshore oil production is always much more expensive than onshore production,” he said according to media.
Kazakh officials who have staked their credibility and the country’s economic prosperity on Kasahgan but the project is already behind schedule and running over budget.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a speech to the nation, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered Kazakhstan’s government to spend more money on infrastructure projects to counter the drag caused by a slowing Russian economy and falling oil prices.
The hastily arranged policy speech caught observers by surprise. Mr Nazarbayev usually waits until his state-of- the-nation speech in January to unveil new policy.
“The tough times for which we prepared ourselves with the National Oil Fund have come. It’s time to use these reserves,” he said during his combative address.
Kazakhstan has amassed a sovereign wealth fund of roughly $77b to counter downturns in commodity prices — the economy is mainly reliant on oil and gas exports — as well as to defend the tenge currency when it is under pressure from a falling rouble.
And Mr Nazarbayev is acutely aware that economic progress is a cornerstone of his popularity.
Mr Nazarbayev pledged to inject $3b every year into Kazakhstan’s economy, during 2015/17. He also said that inter-governmental banks have pledged to match this cash injection.
“The investment from the National Fund must be necessarily accompanied by structural reforms,” he said. “This money will be channelled to develop transport, energy, industrial and social infrastructure.”
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan agreed a deal for Astana to meet most of Bishkek’s electricity deficit, albeit at a price greater than Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev would have wanted to pay.
The deal, finalised during a meeting between Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Mr Atambayev in Astana, means Kyrgyzstan must pay roughly three times more for the imported electricity than Kyrgyz citizens pay for domestically-produced electricity. Importantly, it also shows Kazakhstan’s political clout in Kyrgyzstan is growing.
An estimated deficit of 2b kilowatt hours (kWh) this year, caused by a shortage of water in its reservoirs, public reaction to shutoffs drove Bishkek and the potential to sign the deal.
Mr Atambayev will be relieved to have made the deal to import 1.4b kWh from Kazakhstan but here are still problems. He will have to make up the shortfall from somewhere else, possibly Turkmenistan, and he will have to finance the extra costs.
Currently the government has suggested modest tariff increases beginning Jan. 1. These are bound to irritate people in Kyrgyzstan.
Other agreements reached by Mr Atambayev and Mr Nazarbayev at the meeting are also indicative and suggested that Kazakhstan maintains significant leverage over its weaker neighbour.
Mr Nazarbayev promised that a fleet of Kyrgyzstan-bound fuel wagons, owned by Russian energy giant Rosneft and held by Kazakh customs officials without explanation since April, would be allowed to cross the two countries’ mutual border. He also pledged a $100 million grant to Kyrgyzstan as the country prepares to enter the Eurasian Economic.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
OCT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia may block trucks and trains carrying food from the EU and Norway to Kazakhstan from travelling across it territory because of an import ban. Russia has banned produce from the EU and Norway in retaliation for sanctions imposed by the West.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
