OCT. 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – KMG EP, the London-traded unit of Kazakh state oil and gas company Kazmunaigas, downgraded its oil production forecast for 2011 again because of strikes and powers cuts at fields in the west of Kazakhstan. It said it would miss its initial 2011 goal by 8.4% now. In August, KMG EP said production would be 6% below the initial forecast.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 60, published on Oct. 11 2011)
OCT. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Kazakhstan suspended for six months the opposition Communist Party for trying to team up with an unregistered party with links to exiled billionaire Mukhtar Ablyazov who wants to unseat President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The ban could mean the Communist party misses the next parliamentary election which is scheduled for the first half of 2012.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 60, published on Oct. 11 2011)
OCT. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Timur Kulibayev, head of the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna, said Kazakhstan would pay up to $1b for a 10% stake in the oil and gas project Karachaganak. His statement raised hopes that the state and the Karachaganak investors were nearing an end to their long-running dispute.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 60, published on Oct. 11 2011)
OCT. 4 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – So it’s finally official. The Kremlin sees the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union as a tool for further integration.
In an article for the newspaper Izvestiya on Oct. 4, Russian PM Vladimir Putin wrote of his vision for a Eurasian Union based around Moscow’s leadership emerging from the customs union. The timing of this article underlined its importance. This was Mr Putin’s first major policy statement since Sept. 24, 2011 when he said he would return as Russian president.
For Central Asia, but not yet for the South Caucasus, the customs union is already important. Kazakhstan is an enthusiastic member, Kyrgyzstan has officially applied to join and Tajikistan is thinking about it.
Russia uses the customs union as a bulwark against the growing influence of China and the West in Central Asia, a region it considers to be its natural sphere of influence.
Although Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan may be able to afford to resist, for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan it has become politically and economically important to join the customs union.
Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev can also claim to have been the first to float the idea of a Eurasian Union. He mentioned the concept during a speech at a Moscow university in 1994.
Now, 17 years later, this Eurasian Union is gaining momentum.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 59, published on Oct. 4 2011)
OCT. 4 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A deal will be signed by 2012 on the size of the stake Kazmunaigas will take in the Karachaganak gas field, the head of BG in Central Asia, Chris Finlayson, told the Kazenergy Forum in Astana. BG is part of the consortium developing Karachaganak, the only major energy project in Kazakhstan the government is not involved in.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 59, published on Oct. 4 2011)
SEPT. 28 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan will buy gas from Kazakhstan at half the price it had been paying Uzbekistan, media quoted Kyrgyz acting deputy PM Omurbek Babanov as saying. In return, Kyrgyzstan has agreed to increase electricity supplies to southern Kazakhstan. There has been constant friction between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan over gas and water supplies.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 59, published on Oct. 4 2011)
SEPT. 23 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan has applied to join the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan customs union, Bloomberg quoted Russian first deputy PM Igor Shuvalov as saying. Kyrgyzstan has hinted throughout the year it wants to join the union which some analysts say is a Russian ploy to pull in its former Soviet neighbours.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 58, published on Sept. 27 2011)
SEPT. 22 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan signed a bilateral trade agreement with the US, media reported, taking it a step closer to WTO membership. The key aspect of the deal allows easier access to the Kazakh market for US service providers, especially in the energy industry. Kazakhstan first applied for WTO membership in 1996.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 58, published on Sept. 27 2011)
SEPT. 21 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s parliament passed a draft law that restricts Muslims’ right to worship in the workplace and requires missionaries of all religions to register with the authorities every year. The draft law is part of a raft of new legislation in Kazakhstan to try and clampdown on militant Islam.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 58, published on Sept. 27 2011)
SEPT. 27 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Silk Road is back in vogue, at least at the UN’s General Assembly last week.
On the sidelines of the meeting, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and foreign ministers from Europe, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia were busy plotting a revival of the ancient trading route.
Media reports said the US sees the Silk Road as a way of boosting economic activity in Afghanistan from 2014 when NATO forces pull out of the country.
But if the Silk Road, which has always been a concept rather than a single physical route, is going to return to its glory days it requires a stable, prosperous and open Central Asia through which trade can flow.
Kazakhstan, with its anticipated economic growth of around 7% a year and increasingly open markets, is perhaps the only Central Asian state which fits that description. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are relatively closed and instability plagues Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Of course, a modern day trading system already straddles Central Asia. Lorries carry goods from China to Russia and on to Europe and pipelines pump oil from the Caspian to Western markets. It may not be the Silk Road with Afghanistan at its core that the US envisages, but it is a start.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 058, published on Sept. 27 2011)
