NEFTE Compass articles from December 2007

NEFTE Compass archives from December 2007

Exxon Breaks Ranks In Kashagan Dispute.
December 5, 2007... Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly listed oil company, has broken ranks with its fellow partners in the Eni-led Kashagan project in Kazakhstan by refusing to sanction a deal that would give state oil company Kazmunaigas (KMG) a much...

TNK-BP Adjusts Export Strategy In Light Of Market Volatility.
December 5, 2007... TNK-BP, Russia's third-largest oil producer with output of 1.4 million barrels per day, is adjusting its export strategy to take account of record-high world prices and growing demand. Tony Considine, TNK-BP's executive vice president for...

Russian Production Continues Slide.(Brief article)
December 5, 2007... Russia's crude oil and condensate output averaged only 9.85 million barrels per day in November, up only a modest 1% from November 2006 and actually down about 0.8% from October, according to preliminary data from Russia's Industry and Energy...

Rosneft Faces Major Management Reshuffle.
December 5, 2007... Rosneft is facing a major management reshuffle in what has been read as a further weakening of the company's president, Sergei Bogdanchikov, who could soon himself be stepping down. The state oil major announced this week that three vice...

Lukoil Representative Arrested in Libya.
December 5, 2007... Lukoil's representative in Lybia, Alexander Tsygankov, has been detained in Tripoli since last week. Official charges have yet to be presented, but Russian press reports suggest that the arrest is related to Libya's Epsa-4 licensing round,...

Russia Tightens Control Over Gas Reserves.
December 5, 2007... Moscow has designated the 32 largest unassigned natural gas fields in Siberia and on the Russian shelf as strategic assets, further tightening the state's control over the fields. Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov signed a resolution declaring...

Glencore Loses Primorsk Volumes.
December 5, 2007... Glencore is expected to lose significant volumes of Russian crude oil from Primorsk, as trading firm Reoc, believed to be linked to Glencore, has been ousted from the Baltic port, according to trading sources. Reoc first emerged as a buyer of...

Rosneft Continues Upgrade Of Yukos Refineries.
December 5, 2007... State-run Rosneft is progressing with plans to upgrade the Volga region refineries that the company recently acquired from now-defunct oil major Yukos. Rosneft announced recently that it would invest about 3 billion rubles ($123 million)...

French Total Eyes Caspian Block.
December 5, 2007... Total could further expand its presence in Russia, as the French company has emerged as a candidate to develop the Astrakhan gas field in southern Russia following talks with Russian state Gazprom late last week. The subject was on the...

Gazprom Talks Up US Market.
December 5, 2007... cGazprom considers the US a promising downstream market for LNG supplies and distribution of natural gas, and the Russian gas giant intends to establish a meaningful presence there, according to Gazprom Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev. ...

Lukoil Uncertain About Supplies To China.
December 5, 2007... Lukoil remains undecided on whether it will supply crude oil to China, according to President Vagit Alekperov, who insisted that sales will begin only if Beijing offers a better price than customers elsewhere. "We didn't supply any oil to...

Rosneft Eyes Bunker Fuel Business.(Brief article)
December 5, 2007... Rosneft hopes to enter the bunker fuel business on both the domestic and international markets in the near future, in a move that has sparked speculation that bunker fuels could be the next target of Moscow's recent drive to reassert the...

TNK-BP Cuts Verkhnechonsk Investment Plan.
December 5, 2007... The TNK-BP-led company developing the Verkhnechonsk oil and gas fields in East Siberia has cut its planned 30-year investment program by $5.1 billion to $8.4 billion because of delays building the East Siberian Pacific Ocean (Espo) oil...

Gazprom Neft Gets Two Gazprom Oil Fields.
December 5, 2007... Gazprom oil arm Gazprom Neft has set up a separate unit, Gazprom Neft Yamal, to operate two Gazprom oil fields. Although the licenses will remain with Gazprom, the arrangement would allow Gazprom Neft to count the fields' production as its own,...

Zarubezhneft Gets New Head.
December 5, 2007... Nikolai Brunich has reportedly been confirmed as general director of Russian state-owned Zarubezhneft, which is involved in oil production in Vietnam as part of the Vietsovpetro joint venture with Petrovietnam. Brunich currently heads...

Lukoil Would Benefit From Uzbek Gas Price Hike.
December 5, 2007... Lukoil, Russia's biggest private major, stands to make substantial gains from Uzbekistan's decision to hike gas prices to Russia. Lukoil recently launched natural gas production from the Khauzak field in the southwest Bukhara region of...

Russia, Ukraine Avert Gas Crisis.
December 5, 2007... Russia and Ukraine appeared to have averted a new crisis this week by agreeing new terms for gas prices and transit fees. Gazprom said its 2008 gas price for Ukraine will be set at $179.50/Mcm, which compares with $130/Mcm this year. Kiev...

Eni Moves Into Turkmenistan With Burren Buy.(ENI Corp. to acquire Burren Energy)(Brief article)
December 5, 2007... Eni has broken into Turkmenistan by agreeing to purchase UK-based Burren Energy for $3.6 billion. The Italian company, which is embroiled in a dispute over the Kashagan field that it operates in neighboring Kazakhstan, has been on a buying...

Russia, Turkmenistan To Speed Up Caspian Pipeline.
December 5, 2007... Russia and Turkmenistan have agreed to start work by the end of this year on a new gas pipeline running along the Caspian coast, which will further tighten Moscow's grip on energy supplies from Central Asia. An agreement on the pipeline...

US Sanctions Threaten Belarus Flows.
December 5, 2007... The US Treasury Department's recently strengthened sanctions against Belarus are beginning to be felt in the flow of refined products, as trading firms from the US and Europe have grown skittish about purchasing some products coming out of the...

Rompetrol Builds Black Sea Terminal.(Brief article)
December 5, 2007... Rompetrol is building a floating marine terminal for loading and unloading crude oil from its Petromidia refinery on Romania's Black Sea coast. The $90 million Midia marine terminal will lie 8.7 km offshore from the refinery, near the city...

PKN Orlen Plots Baltic Expansion.
December 5, 2007... Polish refiner PKN Orlen, owner of Lithuanian oil complex Mazeikiu Nafta (MN), has announced plans to invest 200 million ($295 million) on expanding its retail network in Lithuania and the neighboring Baltic republic of Latvia. A company...

Mol Floats Regional Pipeline Network Idea.
December 5, 2007... Hungary's Mol has announced an initiative to set up a joint transmission company operating up to 27,000 km of existing gas pipe in Central and southeast Europe. The move has been cautiously welcomed by the European Commission. But it is at a...

Sibur Lays Out Investment Plan.
December 5, 2007... Gazprom petrochemicals unit Sibur has approved a $5.5 billion investment program through 2012 as the company embarks on several major projects with Russia's oil firms to build and upgrade associated gas processing plants to meet expected...

Imperial To Issue Convertible Bonds.
December 5, 2007... Imperial Energy intends to sell $200 million in convertible bonds to institutional investors that will be exchangeable for ordinary shares in the London-listed company, whose share price tumbled nearly 10% following the announcement. The...

Equities and Currencies.
December 5, 2007... Share Prices Closing On December 4, 2007

Urals Holds Steady In NWE, Firm In Med.
December 5, 2007... Brent crude oil futures traded a volatile $6.46 range from a $93.38 high on Nov. 28 to an $86.93 low on Dec. 3 on concern that Opec might decide to increase production at its ministerial meeting on Dec. 5. When Opec announced a rollover, Brent...

Gas Oil Tracks Crude Futures.
December 5, 2007... ICE gas oil futures prices followed crude futures' decline over the week, although it rebounded gently as Opec's expected production increase failed to materialize in Abu Dhabi on Dec. 5. Traders also noted a tendency for exchanges to fall...

Gazprom Gets Its Man Into The Hot Seat.
December 12, 2007... With Gazprom Chairman Dmitry Medvedev set to succeed Vladimir Putin as the next president of Russia, the ties between the Kremlin and the country's oil and natural gas sector will tighten to a level not seen since Viktor Chernomyrdin bounced...

China Has Little To Show For Udmurtneft Purchase.
December 12, 2007... Despite being its biggest overseas investment, China's Sinopec does not seem to have gained much so far from acquiring a 49% stake in 120,000 barrel per day Russian oil producer Udmurtneft. Udmurtneft's output does not flow to China, its...

Imperial Gambles Big At Kiev-Eganskoye.
December 12, 2007... Russia-focused independent Imperial Energy has begun work to open the sparsely developed land to the east of the Ob River in the Tomsk region of East Siberia, with the hope of supporting the results of a disputed DeGolyer and MacNaughton (D&M)...

Transneft Seeks Major Tariff Increase.
December 12, 2007... State pipeline monopoly Transneft has reportedly requested approval from the Federal Tariff Service to hike transit tariffs by 20.1% next year, as the company looks to help finance its ambitious pipeline from East Siberia to the Pacific Ocean....

Gazprom Wins At Libyan Licensing Round.
December 12, 2007... Gazprom has strengthened its position outside of Russia by winning an exploration tender in Libya's latest licensing round. The Russian company took the Ghadames Basin Area 64 in Libya, where it already has the offshore Area 19 from the...

Rosneft Fails To Find Hydrocarbons Off Sakhalin.
December 12, 2007... Have the reserves of the Sakhalin shelf been overestimated? The question is beginning to rise, as exploration works carried out by Rosneft and BP failed again this year to discover commercial quantities of hydrocarbons in the region, which is...

Gunvor Sets Up Two Outfits To Work In Primorsk.
December 12, 2007... Kremlin-connected trading firm Gunvor is further expanding in Russia's Baltic seaport of Primorsk, at the apparent expense of Glencore, which recently lost volumes at the port. Two Gunvor associates operating in Primorsk -- Vintage and Meta...

TNK-BP Signs Long-Term Services And Pipe Contracts.
December 12, 2007... TNK-BP has awarded a number of contracts for oil-field services and pipeline manufacturing worth a combined $5 billion or more, as the company looks to tie in servicing firms to long-term contracts to reduce its exposure to rising costs. ...

Tatneft Finalizes Loan For Refinery Construction.
December 12, 2007... Regional producer Tatneft has received a $2 billion credit line from BNP Paribas to finance the construction of the company's new 140,000 b/d refinery at Nizhnekamsk, according to Tatneft. The loan has been issued at 1.65% above Libor and...

Gazprom Partners Up With European Firms.
December 12, 2007... Russia's Gazprom is pushing ahead with its expansion plans, signing two deals last week with Dutch state gas pipeline firm Gasunie and Gaz de France (GDF). The accord with GDF envisages joint research and technical cooperation in areas...

Asians Boost Their Presence In Uzbekistan.(Petroliam Nasional Bhd.)
December 12, 2007... Asian companies have boosted their presence in Uzbekistan, with Malaysia's Petronas announcing this week that it has signed an agreement to drill for oil in two blocks in the former Soviet state. Petronas has signed a production sharing...

Kazakhs Look For Amicable Kashagan Solution.(Agip KCO)
December 12, 2007... Kazakhstan is not talking about changing Eni as the operator of the Agip KCO consortium developing the giant Kashagan field, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said at the end of last week. Nor does it intend to abandon the contract for...

Kazakh Producer Postpones IPO.
December 12, 2007... Kazakh producer Zhaikmunai has postponed plans for a listing on the London Stock Exchange because of adverse market conditions, a spokesman for the company said. The company had planned to raise around $760 million by listing just under...

Belarus Starts Oil Production In Venezuela.
December 12, 2007... In a move that could ease its dependence on Russian energy flows, Belarus has started producing oil in Venezuela in a joint venture between the two countries' state oil firms. "The oil your nation needs... is here, as much as you need for...

Lukoil Profits Rise Modestly.(Financial report)
December 12, 2007... Buoyed by soaring oil prices, top private Russian producer Lukoil reported net profits of over $2.48 billion during the third quarter of the year, up 2.1% from the analogous period of 2006 but slightly below analysts' expectations. For the...

Kazakh Producer Boosts Income By Over 50%.
December 12, 2007... Kazakh oil producer Kazmunaigas Exploration & Production (KMG E&P) has increased its net income by 52.6% in the first nine months of 2007 to 103.5 billion tenge ($840 million), compared with the same period last year. The company, which is...

Equities and Currencies.
December 12, 2007... Share Prices Closing On December 11, 2007

Cold Snap Triggers Futures Rally.
December 12, 2007... Brent crude oil futures traded another volatile $6.04 range from an $86.56 low on Dec. 6 to a $92.60 low on Dec. 12, with the low largely due to technical traders searching for a price floor and the high achieved in the wake of bullish US...

Gas Oil Comes Under Pressure.
December 12, 2007... ICE gas oil futures have been pressured over the week with differentials declining, although cracks to Brent have improved with colder weather. Continental European temperatures are forecast at around 4o C into next week, significantly lower...

Russia To Boost Oil Exports To China.
December 19, 2007... Russian crude oil shipments to China have been given a boost after Russia's latest export schedule penciled in for the first time volumes to be sent via the Kazakhstan-China pipeline, and state oil giants Rosneft and China National Petroleum...

Germany's BASF Makes Russian Gas Breakthrough.
December 19, 2007... BASF made a major breakthrough this week by becoming the first German company to start natural gas production inside Russia. Teaming up with Russia's Gazprom, BASF officially launched the more than 1 trillion cubic meter (35 trillion cubic...

Russian Alltech Aims High In Gas Field.
December 19, 2007... Russian financial group Alltech is in the hunt to snag an international major as a partner to develop a big-budget gas-to-liquids project after several recent purchases, but major hurdles stand it its way, not least of which is the difficult...

Sakhalin LNG Deliveries Slip Behind Schedule.
December 19, 2007... Gazprom-led Sakhalin Energy says that it will complete its LNG plant at the offshore Pacific Sakhalin-2 development in late 2008, in a move effectively delaying first exports to Asia and the US by at least a few months, according to a Russian...

Rosneft Seeks Foreign Partners For Black Sea Shelf.
December 19, 2007... Rosneft will need foreign partners to explore the Russian Black Sea shelf, including the Tuapse Trough and the Shatsky Val, the company's president, Sergei Bogdanchikov, confirmed this week. Rosneft's vice president for upstream operations,...

Transneft Gets Green Light For Tariff Changes.
December 19, 2007... Russian state oil pipeline operator Transneft says it plans to shift its tariffs for crude shipments from Kazakhstan to rubles from the start of January, abandoning the current dollar-denominated system. The switch was announced as part of...

BP, Gazprom Deadlocked Over Kovykta.
December 19, 2007... Talks between Gazprom and BP about future ownership of the giant, 3 Tcm Kovykta gas and condensate field in East Siberia have been shelved for a third time after the two sides failed to reach agreement. According to reports, talks ended in...

Gazprom, Lukoil Eye Iran Expansion.
December 19, 2007... Russia's Gazprom is trying to broaden cooperation with Iran in a bid to expand in global energy markets. The issue topped the agenda in Moscow talks between Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller and Iran's deputy oil minister, Hossein...

Gazprom Neft Seeks To Expand Outside Russia.
December 19, 2007... In search of new reserves, Gazprom Neft is actively looking at opportunities outside Russia, Ivan Matlashov, an adviser to the oil producer's president, told Nefte Compass. The regions targeted by Gazprom Neft include Iraq, Iran and Venezuela....

Alliance Makes A Move Upstream.(Alliance Oil Co.)(Brief article)
December 19, 2007... Russian oil company Alliance will finalize a deal this month to purchase a Russian producer, in a move that will allow Alliance to boost production to 90,000 b/d by 2011, Alliance President Musa Bazhaev said. Bazhaev did not provide further...

Putin To Become Russia's PM.
December 19, 2007... Vladimir Putin has agreed to become chairman of the Russian government if Dmitry Medvedev wins the presidential election in March 2008. The move would provide an additional guarantee that Russian policy would not deviate from its current...

Gazprom Outlines Conservative 2008 Scenario.
December 19, 2007... Gazprom's board of directors this week approved the company's 2008 investment program in principle, but the document requires further study, which should be completed by year-end. Insiders say the Russian state gas giant has proposed a...

Kazakhs Close Citic Deal For Karazhanbasmunai.(KazMunaiGas acquires Citic Canada Energy)(Brief article)
December 19, 2007... Kazakh oil producer Kazmunaigas Exploration & Production (KMG E&P) has closed a deal to acquire a 50% stake in Citic Canada Energy, which owns Kazakh oil producer Karazhanbasmunai. At the same time, a new nine-member board of directors of...

Belarus Deal Eases Fears Over Russian Showdown.
December 19, 2007... Russia and Belarus have agreed to a 19% increase in the price of Russian natural gas supplies, easing concerns about a repeat of the new-year showdowns that caused temporary disruptions in Russian energy flows to Europe at the start of both...

Turkmen Contracts Delayed Over Bonus Demands.
December 19, 2007... A failure to agree on the size of signature bonuses is holding up some of Turkmenistan's exploration deals with foreign oil and gas companies, industry sources say. The sources say that Ashkhabad's excessively high bonus demands are...

China Starts Works On Phase Two Of Kazakh Crude Pipeline.
December 19, 2007... Construction has started on the second phase of the Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline, according to China's official Xinhua news agency. When all stages of the 2,798 km line are completed, it will have the capacity to carry up to 20 million...

Bosporus Bypass Pipeline Company Set Up.
December 19, 2007... An agreement creating an international project company (IPC) to build the $1 billion Bourgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline was signed in Moscow this week. The pipeline, from the Bulgarian Black Sea coast to the Greek Aegean, is aimed at bypassing...

OMV Plans Slovakia Drilling.
December 19, 2007... Austria's OMV and Slovakia's NAFTA have signed agreements to jointly drill on two exploration licenses in Slovakia. The companies will jointly explore the Slovak part of the Vienna Basin, covering 1,400 sq km, and will each hold a 50% stake...

Rosneft May Float More Shares To Pay Down Debt.
December 19, 2007... Rosneft may sell part of its 9.44% treasury holding next year to refinance the $27 billion debt it took to finance the purchase of Yukos assets. The holding represents the shares that Rosneft owns in itself as a result of transactions related...

Equities and Currencies.
December 19, 2007... Share Prices Closing On December 18, 2007

Urals Softer But Still Healthy.
December 19, 2007... Brent crude oil futures traded a slightly less volatile $5.10 range from a $94.44 high on Dec. 12 to an $89.34 low on Dec. 18 in largely technical trading. The market continued to be preoccupied with the potential impact on demand if the credit...

Gas Oil Rebounds.
December 19, 2007... ICE gas oil futures have followed crude's softening over much of the reporting period, but regained ground to finish fairly flat on the week before, with January at $812/ton at press time on Dec. 19. It traded from $836.75/ton on Dec. 14 to...