OCT. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rallying on last week’s new discovery, Anglo Asian’s stock price nearly doubled, closing at 29p, a three-year high. On Oct. 17, the Azerbaijani miner said it discovered a new gold deposit 3km north of its main deposit at Gadabek. The company will further evaluate the deposit next year, when it plans to bring it to commercial production.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)
OCT. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan-focused miner Centerra Gold said it completed the acquisition of Thompson Creek, a Canadian miner, in exchange for 8% of its shares. Centerra said that the deal is consistent with its diversification efforts. Under the Centerra brand, Thompson Creek will continue its operations in British Columbia. The Kyrgyz government owns a minority stake in Centerra and had opposed the transaction because it said it would have diluted its shareholding in Centerra.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)
OCT. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev visited Saudi Arabia where he signed deals with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, including a deal to boost nuclear cooperation. Kazakhstan is one of the biggest producers of uranium in the world and has been trying to build up a market to sell to.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)
OCT. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, has shown signs of trouble in its operations in Kazakhstan due to the fall in commodity prices.
In early 2014, it laid off around 1,000 workers. The subsequent devaluation of the tenge currency seemed to have fixed its cost problems but as the US dollar strengthened against all commodities, effectively pushing prices down, the company felt the bite of lower revenues.
In 2015, it cut worker salaries by 25% only to later face a court order that deemed the move illegal. Later in 2015, when the tenge sank after the Central Bank ditched the peg to the US dollar in August, ArcelorMittal Temirtau’s former boss Vijay Mahadevan said that the tenge value needed to be even lower for the company to effectively cut costs.
But exchange rate fixes are only one-off solutions that cannot ensure long-term stability.
Earlier this year, the company predicted a 13% drop in net income and cancelled a promised pay raise to its employees, lowering their benefits instead. And in September, the government lodged a veiled accusation against ArcelorMittal Temirtau for allegedly slowing production to keep revenues low and avoid a higher tax bill. The company said this week it had resumed full production, to avoid further problems.
But the headaches are still there, despite the potential growth of the Iranian market, vital for ArcelorMittal, after most sanctions were lifted this year.
Besides the thousands that it currently employs, the plant in Temirtau holds symbolic value, as President Nursultan Nazarbayev worked there in his youth.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)
OCT. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Over the course of just a few months, KAZ Minerals has nearly doubled its stock price in London, reaching 267.1p by Thursday.
The company, which operates in Kazakhstan’s copper mining sector, continues to rally off the back of good production results throughout the year and timidly growing copper prices, now at 2.11/lb.
Copper prices, which have fallen sharply from the $3/lb of November 2014, had hovered at around 2.15/lb in September, before dropping back. But now the feeling is that prices are moving back up.
China, a major copper consumer, posted steady growth prospect and negative news from the US housing market indirectly bodes well for copper prices. Sluggish US economic news weakens the dollar and pushes up prices. KAZ Minerals improved its position in both production and revenues this year, mostly due to the start of the Aktogay project, which cost $2.2b to put in operation.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)
OCT. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – ArcelorMittal Temirtau, the subsidiary of the Luxembourg-based steel- maker, said it resumed operations at its plant in central Kazakhstan. The company had to cut production for three days, due to administrative issues which blocked train transport. In a separate note, the company said that Mojtaba Damirchilu, Iran’s ambassador to Kazakhstan, visited the plant and pledged to increase Iranian imports of ArcelorMittal Temirtau’s steel by 1/3 to 1.5m tonnes next year. Iran is ArcelorMittal’s biggest client. The international sanctions on Iran had hit its demand for steel, hurting the Kazakh steelmaker.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)
OCT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Centerra Gold’s stock price has been on a rollercoaster this summer, closely following the ups and downs of the price of gold.
This week, both fell. Centerra contracted by 9% to 6.49 Canadian dollars and gold registered an unusual 5% fall to $1,254.38/troy ounce on Thursday. After a tense spring, when the Kyrgyz government and Centerra were at loggerheads over permits and court cases, calm now appears to reign. Importantly, though, this year Centerra has actively tried to diversify its portfolio away from Kyrgyzstan, investing in Turkey and in the US.
As part of the financing for the acquisition of Colorado-based Thompson Creek, Centerra issued new shares which analysts said will dilute the share that Kyrgyzaltyn, the government-owned gold miner, owns in Centerra from 32% to approximately 28.8%.
The deal, inked in July, put relations between the company and the government under strain once again.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
SEPT. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – London-listed China Nonferrous Gold said it is close to reaching its goal of increasing production capacity at its Pakrut gold project in Tajikistan to 2,000 tonnes/day. The company produced its first gold in Tajikistan in January. It has held an exploration licence since 2004. The Pakrut gold mine lies 120km north-east of Dushanbe.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
ALMATY, OCT. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan-focused copper producer Central Asia Metals reported a 38% growth in production in Q3 2016 compared to the same period last year, because of the expansion of its Kounrad project near Lake Balkhash.
The company, listed in London, said it could potentially surpass its goal of producing 14,000 tonnes of copper this year. In the first nine months of the year, it produced 11,010 tonnes of copper cathode, up 31% compared to last year.
The news sent its shares up 3.6% to 181.75p, its highest level since April. The depreciation of the Kazakh tenge after the Central Bank ditched the peg to the US dollar in August 2015 also helped the company cut production costs which should help its full-year results.
“As a result of the devaluation of the tenge as well as some engineering cost savings, we remain confident that we can complete this capex programme approximately 25% below our initial budget of $19.5m,” chairman Nick Clarke said.
Central Asia Metals mainly exports its copper products to Turkey. Its exposure to other markets is limited.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
SEPT. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan-focused miner Chaarat Gold said it raised £4.1m ($5.3m) by issuing 78.8m new shares in London. Labro Investments, which previously held a 25.6% stake in the company, will raise its ownership to 31.7%. Last week, Martin Andersson, owner of Labro Investments, was named non-executive chairman of the British Virgin Islands-registered company.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)
