Tag Archives: pipelines

Georgian PM flies to Ashgabat for talks

AUG. 30 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili flew to Ashgabat for talks with Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov that focused on transit cooperation and various energy projects. Turkmenistan has become increasingly vocal about using the Caspian Sea transit route to export gas. Georgia is key stage-post on this route as it hosts pipelines running from Baku and the Black Sea port of Batumi is a major entrance into, and exit from, the region.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Pipeline from Turkmenistan to India to complete by 2020

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MAY 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Pakistan’s ministry of natural resources said that it expected the TAPI gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan to northern India to be completed on schedule in 2020. The pipeline is considered vital for Turkmenistan’s economy and also for consumers in Pakistan and India who are hungry for more power.

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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Azerbaijan-Georgia gas corridor to complete on time

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MAY 1 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with Reuters, BP’s Georgia country manager, Chris Schlueter said that the middle section of the $40b Southern Gas Corridor would be completed on time in 2018. This is important because it indicates that the entire pipeline system, running from Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea coast across Georgia and Turkey into the Balkans and across the Aegean Sea to Italy may be operational by 2020 as promised. The Southern Gas Corridor is supposed to reduce Europe’s reliance on gas supplies from Russia and also boost Azerbaijan’s economy.

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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Azerbaijan BTC throughput falls

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APRIL 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company Socar said that the amount of oil pumped through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC) had fallen by more than 11% in the first three months of the year, media reported. The fall is linked to a drop in oil being produced by fields in the region, a drop triggered by the collapse in oil prices from $110/barrel in mid-2014 to under $30/barrel in Jan. 2016 and around $50/barrel now. Azearbaijan has exported less oil via BTC and Kazakh producers have turned to the cheaper CPC pipeline that runs around the Caspian Sea to Novorossiya on Russia’s Black Sea coast.

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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)f

Fourth Turkmen pipeline to China is ‘cancelled’

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MARCH 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a major blow to Turkmenistan’s ambitions to cements itself as the region’s top gas exporter, Uzbekistan and China cancelled planned work on a fourth pipeline that was to pump gas to Chinese consumers.

The so-called Line D was quietly dropped at the beginning of the month, media reported quoting a RIA-Novosti article. In the article, RIA-Novosti quoted unnamed officials as saying a drop in demand for gas in China meant that there was no need to build an expensive fourth pipeline from Turkmenistan.

A JV between China’s CNPC and Uzbekneftegas had been created in 2014 to build the 200km section of the pipeline through Uzbekistan. Work had been due to start in H1 2016 but had been pushed back.

For Turkmenistan, the cancelling of Line D, which hasn’t been officially confirmed by Ashgabat or Beijing, is bad news. It’s economy is reliant on gas exports, and with prices low, it is floundering.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Italy moves olive trees for Azerbaijani gas pipeline

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FEB. 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Italy have started moving 200 olive trees that stood in the way of the TAPI pipeline which is slated to pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe. Environmentalists had wanted the pipeline re-routed to save the trees but the pipeline’s backers said that this would delay Azerbaijani gas reaching Europe and also add millions of dollars to the cost. The authorities, in the end, decided it was simplest just to move the trees.

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(News report from Issue No. 318, published on Feb.24 2017)

Azerbaijani section of Southern corridor to work by 2020

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FEB. 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The so-called Southern Gas Corridor running from the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea to Europe will be operational by 2020, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev said at an international security conference in Munich. He said that the South Caucasus Pipeline was 80% complete, the TAP pipeline line was 35% complete and the extension on the Shah Deniz gas field was 90% complete.

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(News report from Issue No. 318, published on Feb.24 2017)

Georgian company to export pipe to EU

FEB. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Off the back of a trade agreement signed with the European Union last year, Georgian company Rustavi Metallurgical Plant will start exporting seamless pipes to Italy, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary, media reported. The deal gave Georgian companies access to the EU market. Earlier this year a Georgian wool company said it had started exporting to Britain.

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(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

CPC says to expand in Kazakhstan

JAN. 31 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Caspian Pipeline Consortium plans to invest $150m in 2017 in expanding the capacity of the pipeline that pumps oil from western Kazakhstan around the northern tip of the Caspian Sea to Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, its general director Nikolay Gorban told media. The expansion plan will boost the pipeline’s capacity to 67m tonnes per year, up from 52m tonnes. This is important because CPC is a key export route for Kazakhstan and especially for its important Tengiz field.

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(News report from Issue No. 315, published on Feb. 3 2017)

Turkmenistan-led TAPI project is delayed, says Pakistan

JAN. 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Completion of the $10b Turkmenistan-lead TAPI gas pipeline that will pump gas from eastern Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India via Afghanistan has been delayed by a year to 2020, Pakistani media said quoting ministry officials. They said that the delay had been caused because it had taken longer than expected to pull together the finance for the project.

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(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)