News Roundup

News Roundup - January 8, 2008

By SRI ⋅ January 8, 2008 ⋅

European Research Headlines: EU and Kazakhstan working for a brighter future

The collapse of the USSR 17 years ago put the former Soviet republics on the map once again. Kazakhstan, the ninth largest country in the world, has initiated and finalised a number of reforms over the years…

TREND: Kazakhstan Consider Acquisition of Oil Fields in Russia

The issue concerning acquisition of the oil fields in Russia has already considered due to purchase of shares of the Pavlodar Petrochemical plant, which is processing the Russian oil…

Reuters: Gulf investors buy 29 percent of UK’s Victoria Oil

Abu Dhabi-based investment house Noor Capital said on Saturday it was acquiring 29 percent of UK’s Victoria Oil and Gas Plc along with a consortium of UAE and Gulf investors…

Regnum: Kazakh expert: The gist of idea of Central Asian Alliance is pragmatism

“The gist of the Kazakhstan’s idea of the Central Asian Alliance is in making all Central Asian countries come to a common denominator. It is not the question of leadership.”

Neweurasia.net: Kazakhs push for Central Asian Alliance, deny ambitions

The news has come from the Regnum.Ru agency — first deputy director of the Kazakh Institute for Strategic Studies under the Kazakhstan’s President once again voiced the idea of the Central Asian Alliance, which had been earlier repeatedly put forward by N.Nazarbayev…

Gazeta.KZ: December inferiority complex

There is a month in a year which is not in favor of Kyrgyz and Tajik people. It is December. As usually, in this period Dushanbe and Bishkek hold hard talks with official Tashkent about the price for supplied by Uzbekistan natural gas…

Eurasianet: Turkmenistan: “Gas-rich” residents shiver in the cold

As Russia, Iran, China, and Europe all vie for a piece of Ashgabat’s natural-gas pie, many ordinary Turkmen have been left shivering out in the cold — despite official promises of free gas…

Financial Times: Investors seek adventure across Asia’s new frontiers

Recent months have seen a burst of interest in Asian “frontier markets” – countries where stock markets are so small they fail to qualify as emerging markets, and that are difficult for foreign investors to buy into, but have potential to grow rapidly…

Resource Investor: PetroChina postpones startup of Dushanzi oil refinery

“The bad weather hasn’t really hindered construction progress and delivery of crude supplies from Kazakhstan will proceed as planned,” an official with PetroChina Dushanzi Petrochemical, surnamed Liu, said. “However, we encountered problems in purchasing some equipment and now aim to bring the refinery online in the latter half of this year.”