Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan’s gas distributor loses revenue

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s gas distributor Kaz- TransGas Aimak lost around 124b tenge ($365m) in 2015 selling gas on the domestic market because the government insisted that it keeps prices down. “Every year we incur losses because the wholesale price is kept below production and transport cost, but we make up for the losses in other departments, such as transit and exports,” the company’s CEO Ibulla Serdiyev said in a statement. KazTransGas Aimak is a subsidiary of state-owned Kazmunaigas.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakhstan’s Air Astana to launch flights to NYC

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s flagship carrier Air Astana said it is exploring opening a route to the US by the beginning of 2017. Air Astana, which is half owned by the Kazakh government and half by BAE Systems, is also looking to open flights to Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakh ministries ban smart phones

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Government ministries in Kazakhstan have banned smart phones from buildings to try and stop official documents being leaked. The ban, apparently, was to try and stop officials from photographing documents with their smart phone and then sending them on to people using WhatsApp. Kazakhstan has launched a number of drives over the past few years to try and professionalise its civil service.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Les Copains opens shop in Kazakhstan

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Italian retailer Les Copains, luxury handbags, opened its first shop in Kazakhstan. The new boutique will be located in the Esentai Mall, Almaty’s luxury shopping centre. Earlier, the company had opened shops in Moscow. Les Copains said it is looking to expand further in Asia and in the former Soviet Union.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakh CBank keeps rate steady

MARCH 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Central Bank left interest rates unchanged at 17% to give the tenge currency extra support. At its monthly policy-setting meeting, the Central Bank said that supporting the currency was a higher priority than reducing the cost of borrowing. Analysts had argued that the interest rate was set too high.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Kazakh Court cuts ex-PM jail sentence

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Appeal Court cut a jail sentence handed down to former PM Serik Akhmetov, jailed last year for corruption, to eight years from10 years. Akhmetov was jailed last year in a high-profile case. He was PM for 18 months until April 2014 and was then defence minister. The case drew attention to Kazakhstan’s reputation for corruption.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Kazakhstan ratifies EU trade deal

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Senate ratified a trade deal with the European Union which Kazakh foreign minister Yerlan Idrissov said had far reaching implications. Mr Idrissov said: “The most important part of the new treaty is the trade section, which offers additional guarantees of stability to our European partners and will help raise Kazakhstan’s investment appeal.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Kazakhstan’s energy firm schedules Kashagan work

MARCH 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazmunaigas, Kazakhstan’s state- owned energy firm, said work at the Kashagan offshore oil field is on schedule and it expects the field to be ready for production by October 2016. Kazmunaigas’ CEO Sauat Mynbayev said he is still unsure about the volumes that Kashagan will produce in November-December 2016. The consortium developing Kashagan, which includes Kazmunaigas, Shell, Exxon, Total, Eni, Inpex and CNPC, has been replacing damaged pipes.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Stock market: Roxi Petroleum, KAZ Minerals, Centerra

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan-focused oil company Roxi Petroleum hit the headlines with a daily increase in its share price of over 10%, although the company did not publish updates regarding its operations at the BNG contract area in Western Kazakhstan.

Still rallying on positive results and an uptake in commodity prices, KAZ Minerals also fared well. The Motley Fool financial website said that, together with Glencore and Fresnillo, KAZ Minerals “could be a great long- term play on a mining sector recovery.”

Centerra Gold, a Kyrgyzstan-based Canadian miner, performed poorly again, and the company blames it on the uncertainty regarding negotiations the ownership structure with the Kyrgyz government.

“The uncertainty about renegotiating the future ownership profile of the Kumtor mine with the Kyrgyz government weighed heavily on the stock,” Mining Weekly quoted CEO Scott Perry as saying.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Kazakhstan reveals Q4 GDP growth

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s economy grew by 1.2% in Q4 2015, the same rate as in Q3, official data showed. Like the rest of the region, Kazakhstan’s economy has been under increasing pressure from a worsening economic outlook. Last year Q1 GDP growth measured 2.3% and Q2 1.7%. This year the government has predicted growth of just 0.5%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)