NOV. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kashagan will not re-start oil production until 2014 because of worse-than-expected repairs to a gas leak, Christophe de Margerie, head of Total, one of the partners developing the Caspian Sea site, said. Over the past month, the consortium developing Kashagan has gradually delayed further the re-start of oil production.
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(News report from Issue No. 160, published on Nov. 13 2013)
NOV. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia and Kazakhstan signed a preliminary deal to pump Russian oil through Kazakh pipelines to China. Russia’s pipeline network is full while Kazakhstan has spare capacity.
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(News report from Issue No. 160, published on Nov. 13 2013)
NOV. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Shymkent refinery re-started fuel production after a month-long planned shut-down for maintenance work, official Kazakh media reported, easing pressure on petrol supplies. Re-starting the Shymkent refinery, one of only three in Kazakhstan, on schedule was important after reports of petrol shortages and price rises.
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(News report from Issue No. 160, published on Nov. 13 2013)
NOV. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a rare case, a court in Astrakhan, northern Kazakhstan, sent two policemen to jail for three year for torturing a farmer into confessing he had stolen cattle. Human rights groups often criticise the authorities in Kazakhstan for turning a blind eye to torture by their police forces.
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(News report from Issue No. 160, published on Nov. 13 2013)
NOV. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — En route to the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, next year, the Olympic torch touched down from space in Kazakhstan. A Russian space rocket had flown the Olympic torch to the International Space Station from Russia’s launch site in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, as part of the pre-Games relay.
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(News report from Issue No. 160, published on Nov. 13 2013)
NOV. 7 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Fuel shortages and a power struggle in Uzbekistan appear to have claimed another major scalp in Shavkat Majidov, the long-serving first deputy chief of Uzbekneftegaz. Although no official information has been made available, media reported Uzbek President Islam Karimov sacked Mr Majidov over continued fuel supply problems.
Mr Majidov was a powerful man, in charge of oil-related affairs in Uzbekistan and closely linked with Gulnara Karimova, Mr Karimov’s elder daughter.
Ms Karimova had once been considered a potential presidential successor but more recently she has come under pressure from rivals. Prosecutors in Europe and Uzbekistan have opened investigations into her business affairs; her supporters are being targeted.
Mr Majidov’s removal, according to a media report, is linked to an investigation into shortages at the Ferghana Oil Refinery. Ms Karimova’s ally Akbarali Abdullayev had controlled the refinery until police arrested him in October. This arrest, it appears, left Mr Majidov vulnerable. It has also allowed outsiders another glimpse of the interwoven world of politics and business in Uzbekistan.
Sultan Alisher, a member of parliament loyal to Mr Karimov, and director of the Shurtangaz chemical plant, has taken over as deputy head of Uzbekneftegaz. He’s a safe pair of hands that Mr Karimov can rely on as the power game in Uzbekistan unfolds.
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(News report from Issue No. 160, published on Nov. 13 2013)
NOV. 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev promoted the deputy chief of the presidential staff, Bakhyt Sultanov, to finance minister as part of a cabinet reshuffle. Mr Sultanov, 42, replaces Bolat Zhamishev who moves on to become regional development minister, considered an important role in Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 160, published on Nov. 13 2013)
NOV. 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Battered German cars once dominated the streets of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city. They were old and rusting but still powerful and reliable.
Crucially, too, it was cheaper to buy a second-hand car in Europe and drive it to Kazakhstan than to buy a new one made at a Kazakh factory.
That’s now changed.
When Kazakhstan entered the Customs Union it slapped an import tax on second-hand cars from Europe. The main beneficiary of this has been Russia’s AvtoVaz which makes the Lada brand of car.
It’s now cheaper to buy a Lada from Russia or a car made in Kazakhstan than it is to import a second-hand banger from Europe.
Figures released last week by the Association of Kazakhstan Auto dealers showed that Lada made up 35% of new car sales out of the 117,000 sold in the first nine months of the year. This is already five times more than the number sold in the whole of 2010.
And more and more cars are being made in Kazakhstan. AvtoVaz owns a 25 percent stake in Azyia Avto, a Kazakh carmaker and it now plans to open a factory building Ladas in Ust Kamenogorsk by 2016.
But shifting Russian manufacturing to Kazakhstan could have far-reaching consequences, said Vsevolod Samokhvalov, a researcher and analyst at Cambridge University.
“It will lock the country (Kazakhstan) into the disadvantaged low added-value part of the post-Soviet production chain,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 160, published on Nov. 13 2013)
OCT. 31 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan wants to turn itself into a regional centre for Islamic finance, various Kazakh officials said at a conference in London. Islamic finance is becoming an increasingly popular way of branding banks.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
NOV. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tethys Petroleum, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, sold half of its Kazakh assets to China’s SinoHan Oil for $75m. China has been rapidly buying up energy assets in Kazakhstan. SinoHan Oil is a fully-owned subsidiary of HanHong. Tethys has operations across Central Asia and in Georgia..
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
