News Roundup - August 28, 2007

Wall Street Journal: In Caspian, Big Oil Fights Ice, Lethal Fumes -- and Kazakhs
Since an unlikely alliance of Western oil companies received rights to drill for oil here a decade ago, they've struggled to cope with a combination of rig-wrecking ice packs, bone-chilling winters and noxious, high-pressure gases. Yesterday, the consortium's bid to exploit one of the world's top oil deposits encountered its biggest challenge yet: Kazakhstan's government, stung by delays and rising costs, suspended the group's permit for the field, halting work there for the next three months...


New York Times: Kazakhs Suspend Permits for Oil Field
The government of Kazakhstan suspended environmental permits on Monday for a consortium of foreign energy companies developing a potentially huge oil field in the Caspian Sea, threatening to slow development of the largest oil find in the world since the discovery of Prudhoe Bay off Alaska three decades ago...
CNN Money: Kazakhstan Sets Sep 5 Deadline For Kashagan Proposal
Kazakhstan expects the consortium developing the Caspian oil field of Kashagan to come up with proposals by Sept. 5 to resolve a dispute, with "adequate compensation" for a delay, a Kazakh official told Dow Jones Newswires on Monday...
International Herald Tribune: Kazakh President Fires Son-in-law from Government Fund's Board
President Nursultan Nazarbayev has dismissed a son-in-law from a top position in a government investment fund amid an ongoing scandal over the former husband of his eldest daughter now wanted on kidnapping charges. Timur Kulibayev, the husband of one of Nazarbayev's three daughters, Dinara, lost his job as a deputy board chairman of Samruk, a holding that manages state assets in major companies of the oil-rich ex-Soviet state, according to a decree posted on the Kazakh government Web site Monday...
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty: Criminal Scandal Widens Around Ex-Ambassador Aliev
Kazakh authorities are piling up the evidence in the case against Rakhat Aliev, a former ambassador to Austria and an influential businessman...
EurasiaNet Insight: Kazakhstan to Cooperate with Russia to Build Air Defense System
Today the country’s defence minister held an expanded session with officers of military units located in [northern] Pavlodar Region. He said that in line with a new military doctrine adopted this year, funding for the army would considerably increase...
Reuters: Kazakhstan's Halyk Bank H1 Net Profit Up 110 Pct
Kazakhstan's No. 4 bank Halyk Bank said on Tuesday its consolidated net profit rose 110 percent to 21.3 billion tenge ($169 million) in the first half of the year...
HotNews.ro: Dinu Patriciu: "I Did Not Sell Rompetrol, But Only a Participation"

Businessman Dinu Patriciu explained at TV news station Antena 3 talk show, "Stirea zilei" on Monday that he opted to sell 75% of Rompetrol to Kazakhstan company KazMunayGaz as he considered the interests of both parties would fit very well. Moreover, he says that his move thus creates an alternative for energy projects from the Caspian region to Europe...

Wall Street Journal: Rompetrol Chief Says Sale Of Firm Will Help Europe
Rompetrol Group NV has sold 75% of its shares to Kazakhstan's state-owned energy company, KazMunaiGaz -- a move the Romanian oil company's chairman said would increase Europe's alternatives to Russian supplies...
The Moscow Times: Battling High Bread Prices With a Cartel
The idea of creating a grain OPEC is similar to the idea of creating a gas OPEC, the plans to conquer the Arctic and the revival of Russia's strength in strategic aviation. The only difference between all of these initiatives is the degree of their economic implausibility...
Shanghai Daily: Coastal Coup: Massive Gas Supply in Pipeline
China has set the route for its second west-east gas pipeline to supply energy from central Asia to its booming coastal regions. And at more than 7,000 kilometers long, it's a massive undertaking, the project investor announced yesterday...