|
|
 |
|
Viewing report
|
|
|
|
Kazakhstan Power Report Q4 2011
Business Monitor International, Sep 2011, Pages: 42
BMI View: Kazakhstan has near-term issues with inadequate supply and longer-term decisions to make regarding the nuclear option. Demand growth is healthy, reflecting the expansion of the economy. Current plans for new generating capacity remain focused on conventional thermal sources, with gas taking the lead thanks to the state’s substantial domestic resources. Asian influence is growing as China and South Korea enter the power arena. However, Russia may emerge as the partner of choice if Kazakhstan goes down the nuclear route.
In spite of Kazakhstan’s vast and largely untapped gas reserves, the country’s power industry is seeking to avoid overdependence on the fuel in electricity generation and has a diversified policy involving coal, hydro and renewables. Nuclear is currently on the side lines, but may well emerge as a component of the power portfolio over the long term.
System losses are considerable and improvements here could bridge the existing supply/demand gap. Ongoing high level investment in generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure is therefore necessary and foreign partners largely from Asia and Russia are being lined up for the key projects. The likely average annual growth rate for Kazakhstan power consumption is 5.0% between 2011 and 2015, slowing to around 3.8% beyond 2015. This represents more than two-thirds of BMI’s real GDP growth forecast and reflects the relative immaturity of the energy market. Growth in power generation over the next five years averages 4.3% per annum, which will prove insufficient to increase market coverage and ensure adequate supply. Only greater expansion of supply above the rate of demand growth can remove the need for net imports.
State grid operator KEGOC has already approved a long-term investment strategy under which a total of KZT530bn will be invested by 2025. It has embarked upon several projects, including rehabilitation of substations, transmission lines and other equipment, building a new substation near Almaty, and power lines to the Moinak power plant. KEGOC is now considering building a new 500kV north-south power line and new transmission lines to connect the west Kazakhstan regions of Uralsk, Atyrau and Mangystau to the national grid.
Kazakhstan plans to hold a ‘people’s IPO’, available primarily to Kazakh citizens. KEGOC and generation company Samruk-Energo, both owned by sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna, are two of the companies President Nursultan Nazarbayev has asked to hold an IPO before 2012. According to a statement made by Nazarbayev, the IPOs will give the citizens of Kazakhstan the opportunity to own shares in major enterprises. It is unclear if foreign investors will be allowed to participate in the IPO, but from the branding of the venture as a ‘people’s IPO’, it appears not – at least not initially. According to Reuters, the aim of the privatisation is to increase the value of the Kazakh stock market.
|
|
|
|
