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Mongolia’s newest petrol train is 5 to 6 days of use, and Russia keeps its diesel ban to 31 October
The 13,000 tonnes of AI-92 petrol that reached Ulaanbaatar by rail in 217 wagons cover 5 to 6 days of normal use, the head of the oil department at the Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority, D. Davaabayar, said at a briefing on Wednesday. Sixty-eight of the wagons had reached the unloading station. The same morning Russia’s government extended its producers’ ban on diesel exports to 31 October.
The Kremlin thanks Tokayev for his words on Putin as he flies on from Berlin to Munich
Russia values and is grateful for the assessment Kassym-Jomart Tokayev gave of Vladimir Putin in Berlin, Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday, and the two presidents’ close, constructive and trusting relations let them discuss the hardest questions of the international agenda, Ukraine included. Tokayev arrived in Munich on Wednesday afternoon for talks with Bavaria’s government and Landtag and a Kazakh-Bavarian technology forum, Kazinform reported at 14:45 Astana time.
Baku ratifies Gran Tierra’s onshore PSA for 5 northern districts, 7 months after its signing
The Milli Majlis ratified on Wednesday, in a single reading, the exploration, development and production sharing agreement between SOCAR, Gran Tierra Energy (Azerbaijan) GmbH and SOCAR Quba-Khazaryani for parts of the Quba, Qusar, Shabran, Siyazan and Khizi districts, APA reported at 15:14 Baku time. The agreement was signed in Baku on 18 February. Gran Tierra holds 65% and operates.
Kyrgyzstan’s fuel cap expires tonight while its subsidised price agreements run to 31 December
The cap on fuel prices that the cabinet set in May runs out tonight, and nothing changes at the pump on Thursday. A second resolution of 7 July moved price-setting to agreements between the antimonopoly service and the sellers, the service printed the agreed ranges on 11 September, and the subsidy that holds them runs to 31 December, the economy ministry says. The cap stopped setting prices 12 weeks ago.
Takaichi and Uchral: 35 minutes, an exchange of notes on the airport loan and a JETRO office
Takaichi Sanae received Nyam-Osor Uchral on Tuesday at 17:45 for 35 minutes and a working dinner, Tokyo’s foreign ministry said. The two welcomed the exchange of notes on the yen loan for the Chinggis Khaan airport expansion, agreed to open a JETRO office in Mongolia and to start talks on a tax convention, and Japan backed Mongolia’s bid for a Security Council seat in 2047.
Mongolia signs a ¥158.3 billion JICA loan at 1.1% over 40 years to triple its main airport
Finance minister Z. Mendsaikhan and JICA’s president Tanaka Akihiko signed the financing agreement for the Chinggis Khaan airport expansion on Tuesday, during Prime Minister Uchral’s visit to Japan, MNB reported on Wednesday morning. The loan is ¥158.3 billion at a fixed 1.1% a year over 40 years, with 10 years’ grace on principal. Capacity rises from 1.6 million to 5.2 million passengers a year.
Merz asks Tokayev for oil in Russia’s place, and Berlin signs 30 documents worth about $2 billion
Germany wants Kazakh oil to replace the Russian oil it no longer buys, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said beside Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at the Chancellery on Tuesday afternoon. At the same press conference Tokayev counted more than 30 commercial documents worth about $2 billion for the day. He also called Vladimir Putin an outstanding statesman and spoke of freezing hostilities in Ukraine so that talks could begin.
Russia caps cash roubles for 7 neighbours at 1 million a head and bans firms from carrying any
A decree Vladimir Putin signed on Tuesday bans anyone from carrying more than 1 million roubles in cash out of Russia into the other 4 members of the Eurasian Economic Union, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan or Uzbekistan. Companies and sole traders may carry none, with 3 exceptions. The $100,000 ceiling that had applied since April is gone, and cash above the limit is confiscated at the border.
The World Bank prices the corridor at $55 billion to 2040, with $30 billion of it beyond the track
A World Bank report published on Monday says the Trans-Caspian corridor’s development could triple its volumes, halve its travel times, add 3.3% to the 9 countries’ GDP and create 2 million jobs by 2040. The bill it attaches is at least $25 billion of physical infrastructure and an estimated $30 billion of enabling investment. With reforms, the Bank says, the volumes would quadruple.
Astana says the Graham act’s tariffs do not reach Kazakhstan, whose gas imports put it near the cut
Kazakhstan is not covered by the tariff measures the law provides for, the foreign ministry told the Kazakh outlet Ulysmedia.kz in a written answer published on Tuesday at 17:08. Its 3 sentences name no volume and no exemption, and they are the first official word from Astana on the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act since Donald Trump signed it on 18 September.
A Turkish engineer is missing after a drone hits a Turkish-owned bulker nearing Novorossiysk
The Palau-flagged bulk carrier Aroyat, 18,315 tonnes deadweight and operated for Istanbul companies, was hit by an aerial drone on 27 September as it approached Novorossiysk from Poti, the Turkish maritime press and The Maritime Executive reported on Tuesday. Fire took the accommodation block and the stern, and the ship has been towed towards Turkey. Of the 16 crew, the Turkish second engineer is missing.
Sughd expects €32 million from the EBRD for Khujand’s sewers and €70 million for Mastchoh’s water
The EBRD will finance the modernisation of Khujand’s sewerage system with €32 million under its Green Cities programme, the Sughd regional administration’s press service said after its chairman Rajab Ahmadzoda met the bank’s head of office in Tajikistan, Holger Wiefel. Design is complete and the main works are planned for 2027. A second project, €70 million for Mastchoh district’s water supply and irrigation, is also to start in 2027.
Five Years Ahead: the dawn that will come every dawn
Uzbekistan has approved 57.2 gigawatts of generating capacity for 2035. On Friday the region's grid showed what one new plant does to 4 countries before breakfast.
2 Uzbek-Kazakh border posts go round the clock as trucks through Syrdarya rise 10%
Uzbekistan's Customs Committee said on Monday evening that the Malik-Syrdarya and Ok Oltin-Tselinny crossings with Kazakhstan will move to 24-hour operation and that the Gishtkuprik customs post is to open in the fourth quarter of 2026. More than 9,200 trucks passed through Syrdarya in September, 10% more than a year earlier, Spot reported at 20:43 Tashkent time.
AIIB signs €158 million for Georgia's Kakheti roads under the Trans-Caspian corridor project
Georgia and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank signed a loan of about €158.5 million on Monday at the bank's annual meeting in Doha, the finance ministry said: two new four-lane sections of the Kakheti highway, Badiauri to Chalaubani and Chalaubani to Bakurtsikhe, and a road from Gurjaani to Telavi, 67.4 kilometres in all, inside a €316.8 million road package the World Bank is co-financing.
Customs chiefs of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye sign a Middle Corridor protocol in Goygol
The fifth meeting of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Türkiye trilateral committee on customs sat in Goygol district on Monday: Shahin Baghirov for Azerbaijan's State Customs Committee, deputy trade minister Sezai Ucarmak for Türkiye and Revenue Service head Mamuka Baratashvili for Georgia. Faster transit procedures on the Middle Corridor and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway were named the priorities, and a protocol was signed, APA reported at 11:50 Baku time.
Bishkek's diesel subsidy reaches 42 som a litre with 2 days left on its fuel price ceilings
The Kyrgyz cabinet's readout of Monday's fuel meeting gives the subsidy paid to importers per litre in ranges set by contract: 17.16 to 30.88 som on AI-92 petrol, 13.06 to 42.27 som on diesel, 0.46 to 1.40 som on autogas. The antimonopoly service's price ceilings, in force since 25 May, run to 30 September. It does not mention them.
Russia locks away its fuel export data, and the region loses the numbers behind its diesel
Decree 686, published on Monday, bars anyone in Russia from publishing what its fuel exporters ship, to whom, at what price and through which port, plus refinery output and exchange sales of petrol and diesel. Companies may disclose their own figures; the government has 10 days to list the goods covered. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Mongolia, whose Russian diesel intake doubled in August, lose the exporter's side of the count.
Tokayev in Berlin: German business expects 37 projects worth €1.8 billion, Merz this afternoon
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev arrived in Germany on Monday evening at Frank-Walter Steinmeier's invitation, Akorda said. The German-Kazakh Business Forum opens on Tuesday at the Haus der Deutschen Wirtschaft in Berlin, where the Ost-Ausschuss expects 37 bilateral projects worth €1.8 billion to be signed, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz receives him at the chancellery in the afternoon to talk energy and raw materials.
PACE calls Armenia’s June vote a real choice made under Russian pressure of a new scale
Observers of the Council of Europe’s assembly, led by Damien Cottier of Switzerland, found that the 7 June election gave voters a real choice in a well-run process, under Russian interference on a scale their report says no member state has seen before, Armenian media reported on Monday as the assembly sat in Strasbourg. That plenary also elected Hayk Konjoryan, a vice-speaker of Armenia’s parliament, one of the assembly’s vice-presidents.