Azerbaijan upstream activities in oil and gas are moving into Central Asia, with two deals recently signed, the last just a few days ago, to build oil refineries in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. New Azerbaijan upstream activities in Central Asia An … Continue reading →
South Korea President Lee Myung-bak returned home last week from a tour of Mongolia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan that helped to project South Korea investment and its foreign economic diplomacy across Inner and Central Asia while significantly expanding Seoul’s ties with … Continue reading →
India Uzbekistan relations reached a new level and further the former’s economic and strategic penetration in Central Asia with the visit to New Delhi last week of Uzbekistan’s President Islom Karimov, who signed an agreement that could lead to India’s … Continue reading →
The trip this past week of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should be seen in light of the possible emergence of an India Kazakhstan China geo-economic triangle, similar in nature to the one I pointed out seven years ago, long before … Continue reading →
Recent progress towards agreement on the possibilities for constructing a Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCGP), in the context of the European Union’s Southern Corridor Program, has drawn attention away from moves towards the elaboration of smaller-scale projects for the trans-Caspian transit … Continue reading →
Kazakhstan has three major regions. Large parts of the west are desert or swamp; the population density generally very low, and the development of energy resources has encouraged local elites to explore the margins of their autonomy vis-à-vis the political … Continue reading →
Three recent developments testify to the latent dynamism of the Kazakhstan energy growth. These concern an extension of industrial cooperation with Ukraine and with India, and new plans for increasing the capacity of the pipeline of the Caspian Pipeline Corporation … Continue reading →
Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbaev has just completed a two-day official visit to enhance Kazakhstan-European Union relations. He went to Belgium, the present chairman-in-office of the European Union Council, and France. Kazakhstan is itself president-in-office of the Organization for Security and … Continue reading →
Currency devaluation and banking reforms appear to have set Kazakhstan strongly on the road to recovery. A ministerial shake-up, which appears more rational than President Nursultan Nazarbaev’s usual reorganizations, and higher oil export duties next year, should help to maintain the economy’s strength
Continue reading →In mid-August, BP Azerbaijan announced that oil from Turkmenistan is now entering the BTC in Azerbaijan and will constitute between four and five percent of its present throughput of 800,000 barrels per day (bpd), which is being upgraded to 1.2 million bpd with a view towards eventual inclusion of oil from Kazakhstan’s offshore Tengiz field. These practical steps of cooperation with Azerbaijan, combined with the mid-August announcement in Ashgabad of new directions in Turkmenistan’s gas export policy, point the way towards a European direction for future Turkmenistani production, not forgetting China and the possibility of South Asia, while Iran is given only marginal reference and Russia is ignored.
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