Tag Archives: metals and mining

Stock market: Centerra Gold, KAZ Minerals

OCT. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The US Federal Reserve Bank’s hinted that interest rates could be increased in December, hitting stock markets worldwide. South Caucasus- and Central Asia-related shares were no exception.

Miners were hit badly. Kyrgyzstan- focused Centerra Gold saw its shares lose over 9% in Toronto this week, closing at 7.36 Canadian dollars on Friday.

KAZ Minerals shares were also down 9%, closing at 116p on Friday.

After announcing it would pay a dividend to its shareholders on Oct. 30, Central Asia Metals reversed a slow start and closed on Friday, with a marginal positive growth, at 163p/share in London.

Oil and gas producers also suffered, despite oil prices gaining 2% this week with Brent crude closing at $49.5/barrel. Kazakhstan-focused Tethys Petroleum and Nostrum Oil & Gas both lost around 10% this week.

After reaching an 8-month high at £21.35/share last Friday, London-listed Bank of Georgia fell by 6.5% to £20.00. Last week its shares rallied after a healthcare group it holds a large stake in announced an IPO price range that valued the company at around $500m.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)

Kyrgyzstan’s Kumtor gold output to drop

OCT. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Canadian miner Centerra Gold said its operations at Kyrgyzstan’s Kumtor mine will produce up to 17% less gold in 2015 compared to 2014. The company forecasts production of 13.3 to 14.7 tonnes of gold this year. Last year, it produced 16.1 tonnes of gold. Kumtor is vital to Kyrgyzstan’s economy and news of a drop in output will hit the country’s economic forecasts. It accounts for around 10% of GDP.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Stock market: Nostrum, Tethys, KAZ Minerals

OCT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Oil companies suffered from a fall in oil prices this week. The Brent index closed at $48/barrel on Friday, down 5% this week.

Nostrum Oil & Gas lost around 9% this week, recovering on Friday to end at 475p per share in London. Nostrum’s summer objective Tethys Petroleum continued its slump, reaching the lowest level in 2015 on Oct. 22, trading at 0.06 Canadian dollars per share in Toronto on Thursday, rebounding slightly to 0.07 Canadian dollars on Friday. Kazakhstan-focused Roxi Petroleum gained 2%, after it issued new shares earlier in October. Roxi closed at 9.63p on Friday.

Last week, the price of copper fell by 2% before recovering to $2.40 per lb. Britain-based miner KAZ Minerals was hit by the market crunch this week and recorded a 7% loss, closing at 127p in London on Friday.

The upside was represented by Centerra Gold, whose shares gained almost 9% despite slower gold production in Kyrgyzstan. The final price in Toronto was 8.28 Canadian dollars.

In the banking sector, Bank of Georgia rose by almost 7% this week to 214p. The stability of the lari currency kept the market optimistic.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Stock market: KAZ Minerals, Nostrum, KEGOC

OCT. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The biggest mover in the stock markets for Central Asia and the South Caucasus was London-listed KAZ Minerals, which gained a staggering 65% since the beginning of October at 145p on Friday. Its performance was in line with most commodity producers which were hit by the Glencore slump last week.

Kazakhstan-focused Nostrum Oil & Gas was stable this week at around 524 pence, after rebounding from a sharp drop last week. Its failed takeover offer for Tethys Petroleum affected its performance in the market.

Polyus Gold continued its roller- coaster to end the week at 198 pence. Polyus has shown a volatility of +/- 3% over the past three weeks.

In local markets, KEGOC, Kazakhstan’s state-owned electricity company became one of the strongest players in KASE, gaining over 25% in the past three weeks. However, because its stocks are denominated in tenge, the value of its assets has not fared as well as it seems. Speculative moves behind the multi-million dollar transactions of the past weeks have turned KEGOC into an appealing investment in a market marred with worsening assets.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)

Kazakhstan-oriented miner borrows $352m from Russian bank

ALMATY, OCT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — VTB Bank, majority owned by the Russian government, agreed to loan $352m to Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), highlighting the Kazakhstan-orientated miner’s need to borrow cash during a period of low commodities prices.

The company, which also operates in Africa, will use the funds to finance the upgrade of two aluminium plants in Kazakhstan.

ERG, owner of ENRC which was previously listed on the London Stock Exchange and has close connections with the Kazakh elite, has an outstanding debt with VTB of around $3b, according to Reuters.

ERG now owes Sberbank, another Russian bank, and VTB a total of $.4.4b, said Reuters. Last September, the company secured around $2.5b in financing from Chinese banks.

Earlier in June, VTB said it would postpone ERG repayment to 2021.

Alexander Mashkevich, ERG chairman, said at the time: “VTB Bank is a longtime strategic partner of Eurasian Resources Group, and the new agreement reaffirms our mutually beneficial and effective cooperation.”

The loan is confirmation of VTB’s willingness back ERG during the slump in commodities’ prices.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)

Kazakhstan based ERG borrows $352m

OCT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan-based Eurasian Resources Group said it has opened two credit lines with Russian lender VTB, highlighting its need for cash during this turbulent economic period. The two loans total $352m and will be used to upgrade two aluminium plants.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)

Rout on commodities-based companies hits KAZ Minerals

ALMATY, SEPT. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — KAZ Minerals’ shares in London lost a fifth of their value over the past week as concerns about future commodities prices continued to stalk the market and copper prices fell to near 6-year lows.

Globally, Switzerland-based Glencore was the biggest loser in September with around $14b wiped off its market cap. The market pushed down Glencore shares mainly because of worries over its large debt pile but the sell-off still pressured other commodities-orientated companies including miners in the South Caucasus and Central Asia.

And the drop in commodities prices it also a sovereign issue in Central Asia and the South Caucasus with national budgets partially reliant on income from sales. This will hurt Kazakhstan in particular, although it will reverberate across the region.

Analysts were quick to point the finger at weak Chinese demand for commodities, especially copper, for the drop in prices. Copper is regarded as a good conductor of electricity and heat and used widely in manufacturing.

“With China slowing down and a lot of uncertainty, fears in the market have intensified, and the reduction in the pace of demand growth for all commodities has seemed to send everybody off the cliff,” Ed Hirs, professor of energy economics at the University of Houston told Bloomberg.

China uses more than half of world’s copper production and any fluctuation in its demand curve has significant effects in the markets. A strong US dollar and uncertainty over Fed interest rate decisions has also hit commodities prices.

London-listed KAZ Minerals, formerly known as Kazakhmys, is particularly exposed to Chinese copper demand whims. Its main product is copper and China is one of its main clients.

Shares in KAZ Minerals were down 20.5% in one week closing at 84.65p, its lowest ever price. It later rebounded above 90p, due to a wave of short-term rebounds across the sector.

KAZ Minerals/Kazakhmys has been portrayed as a company closely interlinked with the elite in Kazakhstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Uzbekistan sends uranium to Russia

SEPT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said a batch of highly enriched uranium had been flown out of Uzbekistan to a site in Russia. The IAEA oversaw the project to remove the highly enriched uranium from a Tashkent research lab.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Stock market: KAZ Minerals, Central Asia Metals

OCT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Mining companies dominated the news this week from stock markets selling shares in Central Asian and South Caucasian companies.

London-listed KAZ Minerals lost 30% in one week before rising slightly to 91p. What was striking, though, was that the trade volume surpassed 25m shares, a weekly turnaround that was only seen during a surge in August and during another sharp fall in mid-January.

Central Asia Metals was essentially stable this week in London at around 155-158p.

Toronto-listed Centerra Gold fell again. This week, the Kyrgyzstan- focused mining company lost around 6% to end the week at 7.29 Canadian dollars.

Central Asia-focused oil companies showed mixed results. Nostrum Oil & Gas shares lost around 4% this week, down to 462p. This fall was linked to the ongoing saga with Tethys Petroleum on the takeover.

Kazakhstan-focused Roxi Petroleum performed well this wekek, as it climbed back to 10p, an 18% surge in seven days, triggered by the positive interim results for H1 2015 it published on Sept. 29.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Stock market: KAZ Minerals, Nostrum Oil & Gas

SEPT. 18-24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — KAZ Minerals shares, now trading at 101 pence, lost over 30% in one week, a fall sharper than the one it suffered last January, when it dropped by more than 25% in one day. Questions on China’s demand

for copper worried investors. Credit Suisse and BNP Paribas downgraded KAZ Minerals and reviewed downwards its target price. Goldman Sachs said there could be a potential upside on Friday and next week.

Nostrum Oil & Gas dropped a further 4% to 481 pence (Sept. 25), although an agreement with Tethys Petroleum seems closer after a company statement said the latest Nostrum offer priced each Tethys share at 0.147 Canadian dollars (Sept. 23).

Azerbaijan-based miner Anglo- Asian Mining gained 13% to 5.38 pence this week, after it published a promising H1 2015 report.

Kazakhstan-focused Roxi Petroleum continued its oil price linked slump, dropping by 4.3% to 8.5 pence this week in London.

In the GDR markets, Kazmunaigas E&P lost almost 20% this week, trading at $6.47 onFriday, almost certainly linked to Kazakhstan’s weak prospects in terms of oil production. Kcell fell by 13.4% finishing the week at $5.35 after TeliaSonera announced last week it would leave its Eurasian markets. TeliaSonera owns 62% of Kcell.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)