MARCH 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan-focused Roxi Petroleum said it will issue 500,000 new shares on AIM to start trading from April 4. Roxi’s shares fell sharply by 8% on the day of the announcement, to 12p. Hit by low oil prices, Roxi’s shares had picked up in January, matching a rise in global prices.
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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan-focused Nostrum Oil and Gas posted a 42% fall in revenues in 2015, a consequence of sustained low oil prices and falling production. Last year, Nostrum’s profits were $449m compared to $782m in 2014. Production volumes also fell to 40,391 barrels of oil equivalent per day, a 9% fall on 2014. Nostrum cut its capital expenditure in 2015 for drilling operations by 54% to $58.7m.
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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
MARCH 30 2016, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Top Gear, the BBC’s high- profile motoring programme, cancelled filming in Kazakhstan after a row between Russian and Kazakh aviation authorities briefly closed the air route between the two countries.
Presenters Rory Reid, Eddie Jordan and Sabine Schmitz, but not Chris Evans or Matt LeBlanc, and 40 crew had reportedly been in Russia filming. They had planned to fly to Kazakhstan from Moscow but instead they returned to London after their flight was cancelled at the last minute.
News reports said the row focused on a new route by Air Astana to Mongolia that crossed into Russian airspace.
The row has now been resolved.
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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
APRIL 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh fans of the BBC’s motoring programme TopGear fans were not the only disappointed onlookers of the aviation spat between Russia and Kazakhstan that grounded Kazakhstan-bound Aeroflot flights and Russia-bound Air Astana flights for a few days.
For supporters of the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union, the spat was embarrassing. How do two, apparently close, allies who inhabit the same economic and military groups, come to squabble over flight paths?
The diplomatic exchange between the two aviation regulators seems to have originated from a request put forward by Air Astana to fly over Russian territory to reach Ulaanbaatar, its newly-established destination in Mongolia.
This row now appears to have been resolved but the damage to the image of the various Russian-led regional groups, chiefly the Eurasian Economic Union, will be harder to repair.
Still, at least the Top Gear team will now be able to travel to Kazakhstan, via Moscow, for filming.
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(Editorial from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
MARCH 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Imports of polyethylene, used to produce plastics, into Kazakhstan fell by 48% to 12,500 tonnes in January-February 2016 compared to the same period last year, MRC, a consulting company, said in a report. According to the report, imports in February stood at a similar level to last year. The fall may also be another indication of the worsening economic downturn.
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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
MARCH 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Guernsey-based Tethys Petroleum said its losses more than quadrupled in 2015 compared to the previous year, mostly due to the depreciation of some of its Kazakh assets. Tethys lost $74.6m in 2015. According to the company’s yearly report, the tenge depreciation also dented revenues. The tenge lost around half its value against the US dollar in 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
MARCH 29 2016, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — In a move designed to improve driving standards, the Kazakh government scrapped rules that forced learner drivers to take lessons at specialist driving schools before they can sit a test.
Previously, it was incumbent on the specialist driving schools to approve learners as ready to step up to take a driving test. This, the government said, added cost, bureaucracy and corruption that was putting people off taking driving exams.
Kazakhstan has one of the worst ratios of deadly accidents on its roads. In 2013, the World Health Organisation said that deaths by car accidents in Kazakhstan averaged 24.2 per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest rate among countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus and around four times higher than the European average. These are often attributable to poor roads or poorly maintained vehicles, but also to bad driving.
An official in the interior ministry told the Conway Bulletin on condition of anonymity that the new rules were designed to simplify government procedures, cut red tape and encourage people to sit a driving exam.
“It is done for simplification. If a person knows the rules, has some driving skills and he or she can pass the exams, we do not think it is necessary to make them study in driving schools,” he said.
Unsurprisingly, driving instructors were less than impressed.
The Kazakh Association of Driving Schools said that the government’s new rules may actually worsen the quality of driving in the country.
Learner driver Akbota Mulkibayeva also doubted the new system would eradicate corruption.
“It is sad because there will be even more bribes to pass the test now,” she said, emphasising Kazakhstan’s shifting and hard to eradicate corruption issues.
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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
MARCH 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s minister of education Yerlan Sagadiyev said school councils were free to allow headscarves into the classroom. The declaration follows a public request to allow kimeshek headdress, considered part of Kazakh traditional dress, thus not in conflict with the government’s ban on wearing religious clothing items. Mr Sagadiyev’s declaration has now opened the way for more exceptions.
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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
APRIL 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nostrum Oil & Gas has suffered a long period of sustained low oil prices, which has hit both its revenues and its stock price.
Nostrum’s revenues fell by a staggering 42% last year, accompanied in the downward trend by lower production volumes.
And, as shown in the graph, Nostrum’s share price has continued to fall, down 48.7% in Q1 2016.
Nostrum, however, remains confident about its long term objectives and pointed out in its full year results that it had cut costs and was investing in its processing capacity.
It made no mention of the failed takeover offer for Tethys Petroleum of last summer, which hit Nostrum’s share price, especially after Tethys started talks with Kazakhstan’s Olisol last November.
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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
MARCH 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev sacked former energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik immediately after a parliamentary election. This was part of a government reshuffle that switched several top-bureaucrats in government and local administrations. Mr Shkolnik, the highest-profile government official to be sacked, was replaced by power sector veteran Kanat Bozumbayev.
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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
