JAN. 26 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Unconfirmed press reports say Irish police have detained former Kyrgyz energy minister Saparbek Balkibekov in Dublin. Kyrgyzstan is understood to have asked Ireland to extradite Balkibekov to stand trial for corruption and theft.
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(News report from Issue No. 25, published on Jan. 31 2011)
JAN. 31 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan has delayed approving plans for the second phase of the Kashagan oil field in the Caspian Sea because plans put forward by the Eni-led consortium developing it are too expensive, oil and gas minister Sauat Mynbayev said. Kashagan is due to start commercial production in 2012. The second phase would push oil production up to 1m barrels/day.
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(News report from Issue No. 25, published on Jan. 31 2011)
JAN. 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran’s Interior Minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, said he wanted the country to establish itself as an energy transit corridor between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf, media reported. Mr Najjar made the comments during an official trip to Oman.
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(News report from Issue No. 22, published on Jan. 11 2011)
DEC. 15 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Chevron-led Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) agreed to double the capacity of its pipeline pumping oil from the Tengiz field in west Kazakhstan to the Black Sea. The expansion will cost $5.4b and will boost volumes to 1.4m barrels of oil a day by 2015. CPC is a key oil export route for Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 20, published on Dec. 20 2010)
DEC. 14 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazmunaigas Exploration & Production (KMG EP) said it will increase spending by 15% in 2011 to $661m. The number of production drills KMG EP operates will increase to 239 from 213 and its exploration budget will double to $55m. KMG EP is traded in London. Kazmunaigas holds the controlling stake.
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(News report from Issue No. 20, published on Dec. 20 2010)
DEC. 15 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — A US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks revealed how in September 2008 a gas leak forced BP to evacuate 211 workers from one of its biggest oil drilling platforms in the Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea. The cable said BP tried to limit public information of the gas leak which shut down part of production at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field.
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(News report from Issue No. 20, published on Dec. 20 2010)
DEC. 9 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will double export duty on oil to $40/tonne from Jan. 1 2011, the Kazakh finance ministry told Bloomberg. Kazakhstan introduced a $20/tonne duty in May 2008 but ditched it in Jan. 2009 when oil prices fell sharply. It reintroduced the tax in August 2010.
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(News report from Issue No. 19, published on Dec. 13 2010)
DEC. 6 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — India’s state-run Oil & Gas Corp. (ONGC) will take control of 25% of the Satpayev oil exploration block in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea by February 2011 in return for a $400m investment, news agencies quoted the Kazakh and Indian oil ministers as saying. Kazmunaigas will own 75% of the block.
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(News report from Issue No. 18, published on Dec. 6 2010)
DEC. 6 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s giant Caspian Sea oil field
Kashagan may start production at the end of 2012 slightly ahead of schedule, Kazakh oil minister Sauat Mynbayev said. Kashagan is the world’s biggest oil find in 40 years and key to Kazakhstan’s push to become a major global energy producer.
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(News report from Issue No. 18, published on Dec. 6 2010)
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NOV. 22 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – Control of the Caspian Sea and its resources are worth arguing over.
It is the biggest inland body of water in the world, covering an area about the size of Germany, and dominates trade routes between Europe and Asia. The Caspian Sea also holds vast stocks of sturgeon which produce the lucrative caviar. Most tantalising, though, is the oil potential.
Its reserves are difficult to estimate but the US Energy Information Administration puts them at between 17b and 44b barrels of oil — equivalent to the oil reserves of Qatar at the bottom end of the scale and to the United States at the upper end.
The five states which border the Caspian Sea — Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan — have argued over its ownership for years. On Nov. 18 in Baku the heads of these countries met for their third summit in eight years on how to divide the Caspian Sea and its treasures between them. Once again much was promised but little agreed.
Writing for Asia Times Online, Robert Cutler, a Canada-based academic, commented: “While the framework for a relatively minor security cooperation agreement was endorsed, the summit’s real significance lay in the agreements not reached and documents not signed.”
Before 1991, ownership of the Caspian Sea was less complex as it only needed an agreement between the Soviet Union and Iran. Now, with five countries, it’s far more difficult. Add into the mix the Caspian Sea’s emergence as an energy transit route to Europe and the debates heat up.
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(News report from Issue No. 16, published on Nov. 22 2010)
