The leaders of the five Caspian littoral states have once again failed in a bid to determine the sea's legal status, which in turn will help determine how to divvy up its wealth of oil and gas resources.
In 1993, Chevron Corporation established a joint venture with the Kazakh government, signing on to a $40 billion commitment over the next 40 years to develop oil extraction in Kazakhstan.
Given the way things went during his recent visit to Turkmenistan, one has to wonder whether Russian President Dmitry Medvedev looks forward to talks with Turkmen leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov as he would a visit to a dentist’s office for a root canal procedure.
The top US diplomat dealing with Caspian energy issues remains certain that a “southern corridor” taking natural gas from the Caspian Basin to Europe will be built. But the envoy added that Turkmenistan is unlikely to be one of the countries supplying the gas.
These days Mahsumjon Abdullaev, a taxi driver in Uzbekistan’s eastern city of Ferghana, has to wake up early every morning to join a long line of drivers who must wait hours to fill up their vehicles at a government-operated gas station. A deepening fuel shortage is abetting corruption and spreading widespread frustration across the country, according to Abdullaev.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s September 2-3 visit to Azerbaijan yielded a big energy deal, as the Russian state-controlled conglomerate Gazprom secured an agreement to dramatically increase its purchases of Azerbaijani natural gas.
As the center of Kazakhstan's energy sector, the city of Atyrau plays an important role in the country's economic success. But you wouldn’t necessarily know it by looking at many of the city’s neighborhoods.
It started with chic shops and restaurants, and a hipster modern art museum. Now, in a bid to lure international conferences and events, Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, is experiencing a luxury hotel building boom.
