Kazakhstan Sweep 100816

• 
  Norwegian engineering company Aker Solutions and the Kazakhstan company KGNT Holding have established a 50/50 joint venture to target oil and gas opportunities in Kazakhstan the Norway Post reported on August 16. The company, Aker Caspian, is targeted for servicing the offshore oil and gas industry in the Kazakhstan sector of the Caspian Sea.
  
• 
  Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev will participate in an informal meeting of the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member states in Armenia on 20-22 August, an official representative of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry, Askar Abdrakhmanov, has said on August 16.
  
• 
  Kazakh Senate Speaker Kasymzhomart Tokayev has received the Lithuanian ambassador to Kazakhstan, Romualdas Kozyrovicius, at the end of his diplomatic mission in the country Interfax Kazakhstan reported on August 16.
  
• 
  Law enforcement agencies and special services of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states will start antiterrorism drills in southern Russia's Saratov Region on August 16, the regional governor's press service reported.
  
• 
  Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev held a working meeting in Astana on August 16 for preparations for an OSCE summit reported Interfax Kazakhstan.
  
• 
  Kazakhstan has introduced export customs duties on oil and oil products that it had adopted on July 13, and published in the official press on July 16 Interfax Kazakhstan reported on August 16.
  
• 
  French Eurocopter, an EADS subdivision, is ready to set up a joint venture (JV) for the production of helicopters in Kazakhstan Interfax Kazakhstan reported on August 16.
  
• 
  The four foreign stakeholders in Kazakhstan's Karachaganak gas field have agreed to cut their stakes and relinquish 10 percent of the company to the Kazakh government, sources said on August 13, The Moscow Times reported.
  
• 
  At the August 16 Government's session Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov was charged the management of border and customs services to study opportunities of opening additional crossing points on the border with Kyrgyzstan Inform Kazakhstan reported.
  
• 
  Kazakh, British and U.S. troops are teaming up for 10 days of joint military exercises starting on August 16. The Kazakh Defense Ministry said in a statement that more than 1,000 military personnel, including a large contingent from the air mobile force of Kazakhstan's military, are expected to take part in the eighth annual "Steppe Eagle" exercises at the Iliysky military range around Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty.
  

 
Norwegian engineering company Aker Solutions and the Kazakhstan company KGNT Holding have established a 50/50 joint venture to target oil and gas opportunities in Kazakhstan.

Aker Caspian will own, manage and operate a fabrication yard in Aktau, located next to the largest sea port of Kazakhstan. The parties have already secured the land area and made financial commitments to start the yard development in parallel with forthcoming scheduled offshore projects in Kazakhstan. Aker Solutions builds on its worldwide resources and know-how within engineering and fabrication for the oil and gas industry when entering this new phase in its operations in Kazakhstan.

 

Kazakh leader to attend informal CIS security bloc summit in Armenia

He said that proposals for forming an efficient system for responding to crises within the CSTO are also to be discussed.

Kazakh Senate speaker meets outgoing Lithuanian envoy

07:24 16/08/2010

Law enforcement agencies and special services of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states will start antiterrorism drills in southern Russia's Saratov Region on Monday, the regional governor's press service reported.
"In line with the decision of the National Antiterrorism Committee, an international operational and strategic exercise of SCO member states, with participation of Russian, Kyrgyz and Kazakh law enforcement agencies and special services, will be held in the Saratov Region on August 16-28," the press service said.
The exercises will be held in two stages: the first stage on August 16-23, and the second on August 25-28.
"During the first stage of drills, joint actions by Russian, Kyrgyz and Kazakh law enforcement agencies and special services to conduct coordinated operational and investigative activities against a hypothetical terrorist group are to be practiced," the press service said.
"At the second stage, a counter terrorism operation is to be conducted on a mass facility in Saratov," it said.
The SCO is a security organization consisting of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan have observer status.

Kazakh leader inspects preparations for OSCE summit

Excerpt from report by privately-owned Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency
Astana, 16 August: Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev held a working meeting in Astana today on preparations for an OSCE summit.
[Passage omitted: Kazakh prime minister and other officials attended the meeting]

During the meeting, the president said that there was a lot of work ahead to organize and hold this historical meeting at the highest organizational and informative level, the presidential press service said.

As previously reported, the government adopted the decree on July 13, the document was published in the official press on July 16.

According to the publication, the resolution was to come into force following thirty days after its first official publication.

The Kazakh government has approved the following rates of the export duties: $20 per ton of crude oil, $99.71 per ton of light-oil products and $66.47 per tons of heavy-oil products.

The crude export duties, as specified in the resolution, will not be applied in the following cases: exports of the crude oil produced by the mineral resource companies under the production sharing agreements (contracts) which were duly concluded with the Kazakh government or the authorized agency before January 1, 2009 and which were assessed for tax purposes and granted exemption from export duties; exports of the crude oil produced by the mineral resource companies under the subsoil use contracts which provide exemption from crude export duties and which are not production sharing agreements (contracts), except for the crude oil exported by the mineral resource companies that pay royalty.

As reported, the Finance Ministry expects that revenues to the national budget from oil exports will come to 60 billion tenge (147.57/$1) in 2010 and 177 billion tenge in 2011.

Interfax-Kazakhstan – French Eurocopter, an EADS subdivision, is ready to set up a joint venture (JV) for the production of helicopters in Kazakhstan.

The news was announced during a meeting between the Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov and Senator of France Emery de Montesquieu in Astana on Saturday.

“In particular, Eurocopter Company expressed interest in setting up a joint project for the production of helicopters in Kazakhstan. Montesquieu confirmed the French side’s willingness to sign all necessary documents during the upcoming official visit of the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to Paris in autumn 2010,” the Prime Minister’s press-service said in a press release.

The meeting also discussed the Kazakh-French cooperation in trade and economic sphere. The sides pointed out great perspectives for the cooperation in the agricultural field, veterinary science, defense and aviation industries.

Masimov also held a meeting with the Head of the British-Kazakh All-party Parliamentary Group Lord Viscount Waverley.

“The sides discussed the development of the Kazakh-British trade and economic cooperation,” reads the report.

Kazakh Gas Group to Cede Stake to State
16 August 2010
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/kazakh-gas-group-to-cede-stake-to-state/412391.html

The four foreign stakeholders in Kazakhstan's Karachaganak gas field have agreed to cut their stakes and relinquish 10 percent of the company to the Kazakh government, sources said Friday.

One source close to the negotiations said the Karachaganak Petroleum Operating Group, or KPO, made up of ENI, BG Group, Chevron and LUKoil, discussed terms of sale July 19 but they were not final.

"The companies said they would transfer 5 percent to the state if it abandons the re-introduced oil export duty or drops its cost overstatement lawsuit of more than $1 billion," the source said. "Kazakhstan will buy the remaining 5 percent in cash."

Britain's BG Group owns 32.5 percent of KPO, and ENI has a similar stake. U.S. major Chevron has 20 percent, while Russia's LUKoil has 15 percent. It was not immediately clear how much each would give up to bring the Kazakh state in as a shareholder.

Kazakhstan has accused the ENI- and BG-led group of violating immigration laws and overstating costs by $1.3 billion as it seeks a stake in the giant oil and gas field in the country's west.

The consortium denies all wrongdoing and says it has acted in accordance with the Kazakh laws and agreements it has with the country's government.

A spokesman for state oil company KazMunaiGaz declined to comment Friday. Spokesmen for all four members of the operating group have also declined comment.

A source within the consortium who is close to the negotiations but declined to be identified said both sides aimed to conclude talks in the fall, and that KazMunaiGaz wanted some control over expenditure on the third stage of Karachaganak.

"It won't all be cash," the source said, referring to the sale.

Another top-level source in KPO said the path to resolution would mirror that taken by foreign partners in the Kashagan oil field project two years ago.

"Nobody, of course, wants to sell, but the only logical solution is the Kashagan model. It will mirror that," he said.

KazMunaiGaz president Kairgeldy Kabyldin said June 3 that the state company had made a proposal to the Karachaganak consortium to acquire a 10 percent stake. Talks between KPO and the government have been ongoing since April, and KazMunaiGaz chairman Timur Kulibayev has said the price would be open to negotiation.

In 2008, partners in the large ENI-led Kashagan oil field project ceded an 8.5 percent stake to allow KazMunaiGaz to double its share after facing accusations of environmental violations, delays and cost overruns.

Now Kazakhstan has filed a cost overstatement claim for $1.3 billion against KPO in arbitration court and said in June that it would reintroduce energy export duties this year that Karachaganak may have to pay.

Under current rules, most Western energy majors working on production sharing agreements, or PSAs, in Kazakhstan are not liable to changes in the country's tax legislation, and BG CEO Ashley Almanza has said Karachaganak should not have to pay.

Both the Kashagan and Karachaganak PSAs with the Kazakh government were signed in the 1990s when the country was desperate for foreign investment and expertise to develop its energy sector.

But in recent years Kazakhstan, Central Asia's largest energy producer, has made it a top priority to claw back control over its oil and gas operations and raise more money for the budget through taxes and export duties.

In June, Kazakhstan's oil minister, Sauat Mynbaev, said the country's 16 PSAs with foreign oil firms were under review, as they were initially set "at a loss," but there were no plans to cancel them

16.08.2010 / 16:55

ASTANA. August 16. KAZINFORM /Muratbek Makulbekov/ At today's Government's session Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov has charged the management of border and customs services to study opportunities of opening additional crossing points on the border with Kyrgyzstan.

The Prime Minister noted that additional crossing points could be opened only on those sections of the border, where Kyrgyz side had "an opportunity to control the situation".

This request came from Kyrgyz Minister of Finance Chorobek Imashev, who informed about the slowing down of trade between the two states caused by traffic problems at the crossing points.

 Kazakh, British, U.S. Troops Open Drills

http://www.rferl.org/content/Kazakh_British_US_Troops_Open_Drills/2128534.html

Kazakh, British and U.S. troops are teaming up for 10 days of joint military exercises.

The Kazakh Defense Ministry said in a statement that more than 1,000 military personnel, including a large contingent from the air mobile force of Kazakhstan's military, are expected to take part in the eighth annual "Steppe Eagle" exercises at the Iliysky military range around Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty.

The Defense Ministry said the annual drills, being held as part of NATO's Partnership For Peace program, are expected to be attended by military observers from a number of countries.

Kazakhstan's "Kazbrig" peacekeeping brigade and "Kazbat" air mobile forces infantry battalion are expected to participate.