Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Stock market: Nostrum Oil and Gas

FEB. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nostrum Oil & Gas, the London- listed and Kazakhstan-focused, oil producer hit its lowest level since the beginning of the year on Feb. 9. On its main listing in London, Nostrum’s shares were valued at 436p.

Analysts have said that the drop, which has seen it tumble from a high of 475/$1 since Feb. 1, was linked to a general softening of oil prices rather than any news linked to the company itself.

Instead most analysts have given the company a ‘buy’ rating and raised their target prices. Last month Deutsche Bank, Numis Securities, GMP Securities and

Panmure Gordon all gave Nostrum a ‘buy’ rating and targeted share prices of 535p to 600p.

Credit Suisse downgraded its outlook for Nostrum to a ‘hold’ from a ‘buy’ and targeted a price of 415p to 440p.

At the end of last month, Nostrum said in its annual report that output had just about matched expectations and that it would realise savings in 2017 through a connection to the KTO pipeline.

“(This) will allow us to realise significant savings to exported crude oil transportation costs and continue to seek to reduce costs across the business,” it said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Kazakh banking sector in bad shape, say IMF

FEB. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s banking sector needs urgent care and attention if the country is going to be able to pull through an economic downturn that has destroyed growth and wiped out people’s ability to pay back loans. The IMF said that a large proportion of the banks’ loans and assets were linked to the construction sector which has been particularly hard hit. Kazakhstan’s Central Bank has said that it would be willing to use state funds to support banks.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Amnesty criticises Kazakhstan over social media crackdown

FEB. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Kazakhstan are chipping away at personal liberties with their increasingly aggressive crackdown on social media sites, Amnesty International said in a statement. It said independent media has been destroyed and that until recently Facebook and other social media sites had played an important role in facilitating political discourse. Now, though Amnesty said, the authorities were tracking people’s comments and using them in court to incriminate them.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Currencies: Kazakh tenge, Azerbaijani manat, Georgian lari

FEB. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Azerbaijani manat and the Georgian lari jumped by 6.6% and 5.7% in the week to Feb. 9, a sharp jolt against their predominantly downward trajectories.

The manat was valued at 1.82/$1 on Feb. 9, a one month high. The lari was valued at 2.63/$1, a two- month high.

In Baku, some currency analysts said that this was the start of a realignment of the national currency that would see it appreciate back up to around 1.5/$1, a level not seen since mid-2016. They argued that the currency was undervalued and that as oil prices continue to rise, even slightly, and the economy improves, the manat will strengthen.

Other analysts are more cautious and have said that a multi- million dollar one-off transfer from Azerbaijan’s state oil fund to the government has boosted the value of the manat temporarily and that the decline will continue in the longer term.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Austrian police raids Kazakh team’s hotel

FEB. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Austrian police raided the Kazakh biathlon team’s hotel looking for evidence of drug taking on the eve of the World Championships. Kazakhstan wants its sports teams to be taken more seriously and this drug raid will be an embarrassment, doubly so presumably, because of its previously stated determination to host the Winter Olympic Games. Kazakh team officials have denied any wrongdoing.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Kazakh police arrests independent editor

FEB. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Kazakhstan arrested Zhanbolat Mamay, the editor of the independent Tribuna newspaper, on corruption charges, once again worrying free speech activists . The press in Kazakhstan has been steadily eroded with a series of high-profile arrest of journalists last year. Tribuna and Mr Mamay had been regarded as one of the few remaining independent news outlets. Free speech activists have described the crackdown as a systematic effort to muzzle critics of the government.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Kazakhstan to buy Serbian stake in railway

FEB. 8 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Serbia has agreed to sell its 90.64% stake in railway construction and maintenance firm ZGOP to Kazakhstan’s Zhol Zhondeushi for 3.63m euros, media reported. ZGOP is based in the Serbian city of Novi Sad and employs 290 people and has outstanding debts of $8.2m. In 2012, Zhol Zhondeushi made headlines after it emerged that it had been sold by ENRC to one of the company’s nephew’s for an inflated price.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Output falls, says Kazakh oil and gas producer

FEB. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Production at Kazakhstan’s largest oil and gas producer, Karachaganak, fell by 1.4% in 2016, compared to 2015, to 139.7m barrels of oil equivalent, the consortium operating the project said. This drop highlights a general decrease in output by Kazakh oil and gas producers during a prolonged period of low prices. Projects such as Karachaganak are vital for Kazakhstan’s economy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Kazakh capital to host Syrian technical ceasefire talks

FEB. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Officials from the United Nations, Russia, Turkey and Iran met in Astana to discuss the technical aspects of a ceasefire deal that they hope to impose on a civil war in Syria between President Bashar al- Assad’s forces and rebels. Astana has hosted a series of Syria ceasefire talks, the most recent in January. While the success of the talks is still open for debate, the positive PR generated by the Astana talks for Kazakhstan as a global mediator is undeniable.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Kazakh president sends Tasmagambetov to Moscow

FEB. 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Until last Friday, Imangali Tasmagabtov had a sparkling CV. He was considered the consummate Kazakh insider and the man with a hotline to the president. If Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakh president since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, wanted something done, he turned to Tasmagabetov, his trusted lieutenant.

The urbane Tasmagambetov had been the Kazakh PM between 2002 and 2003; mayor of Almaty between 2004 and 2008; mayor of Astana between 2008 and 2014; defence minister from 2014 until 2016 and then a deputy PM until Feb. 3 2017. In each one of these sensitive positions, Nazarbayev personally appointed Tasmagambetov.

In Kazakhstan’s myopic politics, Tasmagambetov had even been talked of as a president-in-waiting and, if he had been given the top job, this would have come as no major surprise as his career has closely tracked that of Nazarbayev.

Now, followers of Kazakhstan’s politics will have to think again. Tasmagambetov will not be the next Kazakh president. That was made clear on Friday.

Instead, he will move to Moscow as the Kazakh ambassador to Russia, a diplomatic exile that will undermine his powerbase and take him away from the cauldron of Kazakhstan’s Astana-based politics.

It is amanoeuvre that has served Nazarbayev well. He has dispatched other powerful figures to embassies where they have been forced to watch the main action from the sidelines.

Perhaps Tasmagambetov’s error was to become too powerful and too popular. The 60-year-old had a high profile, bigger

than almost all other Kazakh politicians because of his tenureship of both the Almaty and Astana mayoral positions. He was also considered by ordinary people in Kazakhstan to be one of the most “Kazakh” of the elite, a major advantage in a country grappling with its newfound nationalism. He was popular and considered a man who got stuff done.

Kazakh politics will move on without Tasmagambetov. For now. But he is an ambitious man, born into a humble household in western Kazakhstan who still retains a sizable support-base. Don’t write off a comeback for the new Kazakh ambassador to Moscow.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 315, published on Feb. 3 2017)