NEFTE Compass articles from May 2003

NEFTE Compass archives from May 2003

Decades: Gazprom Moves Closer To Landmark Gas Export Deal.
May 7, 2003... Gazprom is inching toward a landmark agreement with Ukraine and Germany that should guarantee the smooth flow of Russian gas to Western Europe for decades to come. Despite a few remaining obstacles, insiders are confident that there is enough...

Deadline: Transneft Throws Down The Gauntlet To Latvia.
May 7, 2003... Russian national pipeline operator Transneft has thrown down the gauntlet to Latvia, delivering an ultimatum to hand over its state-held stake in the Ventspils export terminal on the Baltic Sea or face the consequences. Riga has one year...

Duty Calls: Moscow To Lop One Third Off Export Duty.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2003... In line with the decline in crude oil prices over the last two months, Moscow is fixing to take a smaller slice of the hard currency windfall that oil companies reap from their exports. The government commission for protective measures in...

Marathon Winner: Shell Gives Marathon The All-Clear On KMOC.(Khanty-Mansiisk Oil Corp.)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2003... Marathon Oil Corp.'s bid to reestablish itself in Russia appears to be going according to plan. The US company says that Enterprise Oil Overseas Holdings and Enterprise Oil Exploration -- both members of the Royal Dutch/Shell group of...

Coal Phase: Chinese Agree Price Outline For Kovykta Gas.
May 7, 2003... BP and Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK) have reached a preliminary agreement on a pricing formula with Chinese and South Korean participants in a feasibility study on export of gas from the giant Kovykta field in East Siberia. That formula would index an...

The Producer: Tatneft Speculates To Accumulate.(Petroleum Industry)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2003... Tatneft is drafting a development program that aims to increase its production by 2% per year during 2004-05 at the same time as cutting production costs by 10% per year, says the producerAEs general director, Shafagat Takhautdinov. To...

April Shower: Gas Oil Exports Hit All-Time Highs.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2003... Russia cranked up exports of oil products last month, after the end of the winter heating season and before the start of the spring sowing season. Seaborne products exports climbed by more than 20% to 250,000 metric tons/day in April, from...

No Contest: BP Sees Russia With Better Potential Than Iraq.(British Petroleum Company PLC)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2003... BP sees much more potential for itself in Russia than in Iraq. At the company's annual general meeting in London at the end of last month, BP chairman Peter Sutherland called the $6.5 billion deal to set up TNK-BP "a great moment in the...

Poland: Accident At Gdansk Refinery Claims Three Lives.(Gdanska Stocznia Remontowa)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2003... Three people are presumed dead and another is missing after a barge with 20,000 cubic meters of gasoline at Poland's Gdansk refinery went up in flames. The blast will not affect operation of the refinery, which is Poland's second largest...

Forgiven: US Ready To Work With Russia On Iraq.
May 7, 2003... Despite differences over the war with Iraq, relations between the US and Russia about postwar Iraq or cooperation on energy issues will not be affected in any significant way, top Bush administration officials told a Senate panel Wednesday. ...

Friends In Need: Itera Seeks Strategic Partnership With Gazprom.(Gazprom Russian Joint Stock Co.)
May 7, 2003... Russian gas trader and producer Itera is seeking to rebuild a strategic cooperation partnership with Gazprom, after their previous close relationship was ended by GazpromAEs new management. Itera is offering Gazprom stakes of up to 20% in...

Kazakhstan: China Warns Kashagan Partners Against Preemption.
May 7, 2003... China is stepping up the pressure on a group of international oil companies not to bar two Chinese state companies from buying BG's stake in the consortium developing the giant Kashagan field. Beijing has warned that members of the...

Chinese Caspian: China Inc. Expands In Azerbaijan And Kazakhstan.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2003... China's state oil companies are expanding their interests in the Caspian. A 25% stake in oil producer CNPC-Aktobemunaigas is to be floated soon on the Kazakhstan stock exchange. While the offering will generate some liquidity in the stock...

Azerbaijan: Arcadia Wins Socar Tender.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2003... UK-based trader Arcadia has won the latest tender from Azeri state oil company Socar. It will pick up a cargo of 1 million bbl of Urals crude at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk at the beginning of June. Arcadia won a similar...

Uzbekistan: Lukoil Aims To Sign Gas PSA By Year-End.(Prized gas fields)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2003... Prized gas fields that were once eyed by failed US energy giant Enron are now being targeted by Lukoil. The Russian company's international arm, Lukoil Overseas Holding, said it plans to sign a production sharing agreement for the...

Ukraine: Tax Police Seize Refinery.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2003... The Ukrainian tax police have seized the assets of the Drogobych (Galichina) refinery because of allegations that the plant is delinquent on its tax bill. The tax inspectorate claims that the plant has defrauded the government of some 138...

Big Brother: Yukos Keeps Mazeikiu Nafta On The Up.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2003... Controlled and operated by Russia's Yukos, Lithuania's Mazeikiu Nafta (MN) has turned a new milestone, achieving its second straight quarter of profitability after years of losses.a In the first quarter of 2003, MN reported a net profit of...

Barrel Scraper: Tatneft Comes Bottom Of Dividend Payers.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2003... Tatneft's board of directors will propose dividends this year of 10 kopecks ($0.003) per common share and 1 ruble ($0.03) per preferred share. Shareholders will vote on the board's recommendation at an annual meeting on Jun. 27. ...

Equities And Currencies.
May 7, 2003... Share Prices Closing On May 6, 2003

Crude Oil: Urals Differentials Hold Their Own.
May 7, 2003... Brent crude oil futures have been bumping along in the lower half of a broad $23.05-$24.39 range. Direction has been largely determined by headlines, restrictions by technical considerations. Indecisive political posturing over Iraq this...

Products: Warm Weather Cools Gas Oil.
May 7, 2003... Russian gas oil differentials have come under pressure with the onset of warm summer weather causing heating oil demand to dry up. An open arbitrage to Asia is supporting the market for Russian fuel oil. Russian gas oil differentials in...

First: Russia Signs Historic LNG Sales Contract.(liquefied natural gas sale deal )
May 14, 2003... Russia's first ever contract to sell liquefied natural gas (LNG) has been signed by a Japanese power utility. The landmark deal, a heads of agreement signed on May 12 by Tokyo Gas and Sakhalin Energy, the Royal Dutch/Shell-led operator of...

Last: China Wounded By Icy Blast Of Rejection.
May 14, 2003... China could be forgiven for feeling unloved by its neighbors. The magnetism of its vast internal energy market was not enough to stop China from being frozen out of Kazakhstan's huge offshore Kashagan oil field, just five months after being...

Latvian Leverage: Ventspils Consolidation Augurs Transneft Deal.
May 14, 2003... The Baltic Sea port of Ventspils is consolidating its position in negotiations with Transneft, in what could be a prelude to the two sides finally reaching a deal over the Russian national pipeline operator taking an equity stake in the Latvian...

Downer: PSAs Chapter Approved, Investors Disappointed.(production sharing agreements)
May 14, 2003... The State Duma lower house of Parliament has finally approved the chapter on production sharing agreements (PSAs) in the Tax Code in the second reading. Only three projects -- Prirazlomnoye, Shtokmanovskoye, and acreages in the Caspian...

V-Day: Rosneft Plans Vankorskoye Development.(Vankorskoye oil and gas acreage)(Brief Article)
May 14, 2003... Rosneft is to present a plan by Jun. 15 to develop the Vankorskoye oil and gas acreage in Eastern Siberia, according to the company's first vice president, Nikolai Borisenko. The first development phase would require an investment of $2.5...

High Five: Gazprom Gets Close To South Korea.
May 14, 2003... Gazprom has sent a strong signal that it is determined to be a major player in the nascent Far East market for Russian gas by signing a five-year cooperation agreement with South Korean state Korea Gas Corp. (Kogas) -- in the same week that the...

Divorce: TNK Buys Sibneft Out Of Onaco Assets.(Tyumenneft)(Orenburg Oil Co.)(Brief Article)
May 14, 2003... Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK) has completed the purchase of Sibneft's stakes in Orenburg Oil Co. (Onaco) and its subsidiaries in a transaction worth $825 million. The deal comes as a big step as TNK and Sibneft work to disentangle themselves by divvying...

Upwardly Mobile: TNK Announces 15% Reserves Boost.(Tyumenneft)(Brief Article)
May 14, 2003... Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK) has announced a 15% boost in its reserves. The company released revised audited reserves of 9.09 boe for the end of 2002, compared with 7.9 billion boe the year before. The new data, based on evaluations made according...

Northern Exposure: Rosneft and Lukoil Divide Timan-Pechora Assets.
May 14, 2003... Lukoil and Rosneft have finalized a deal to divide up their assets in the northern Timan-Pechora oil province. Rosneft's board of directors is set to approve the agreement at its May 19 meeting. Lukoil's board has already given its blessing to...

Comeback: Marathon Makes Its Return To Russia.(Khanty Mansiysk Oil Corp.)(Marathon Oil Co.)(Brief Article)
May 14, 2003... US producer and refiner Marathon Oil announced this week the completion of the acquisition of Khanty-Mansiisk Oil Corp. (KMOC) in a cash transaction of $280 million, including Marathon's assumption of KMOC's debt and transaction costs. ...

Reservations: Russia To Increase Reserves Base.(crude petroleum)(Brief Article)
May 14, 2003... The Natural Resources Ministry is pressing ahead with its program to increase the country's resource base. Acting on government orders, the ministry announced its plans to increase crude reserves this year in the C1 and C2 categories by 400...

Pacific Boast: US Refiner Gives West Coast A Taste Of Sakhalin.(Tesoro)
May 14, 2003... US refiner Tesoro has broken new ground by taking one of the first major cargoes of Sakhalin crude to the US West Coast. Tesoro bought a 650,000 bbl cargo of crude produced by Sakhalin Energy, the Royal Dutch/Shell-led consortium developing the...

Azerbaijan: BP Harnesses Finance For BTC Pipeline.(British Petroleum Company PLC)(BTC Pipeline Co.)
May 14, 2003... The first pieces of external financing are starting to fall into place for the $3 billion Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. BP, which leads the BTC Pipeline Co. constructing the line, says that the...

Azerbaijan: Deutag Secures BP Drilling Contracts.(Brief Article)
May 14, 2003... UK-based global oil services group Abbot says its German drilling contractor subsidiary KCA Deutag has secured a new contract from BP for platform drilling services on the West Azeri and East Azeri platforms offshore Azerbaijan worth $150...

Lithuania: Mazeikiu Refinery Resumes Operations.(Brief Article)
May 14, 2003... The Mazeikiu refinery has resumed normal operations two days ahead of schedule, after just over a month of planned maintenance aimed at improving fuel quality to European Union standards. A new isomerization unit was installed at an...

Poland: Gdansk Refinery Sell-Off Saga Takes New Twist.
May 14, 2003... The government's sell-off of Rafineria Gdanska, the country's second-largest refiner and fuel retailer, could take another turn, as Gdanska's management has revealed plans to create a company called Lotos by buying Baltic Sea offshore producer...

Black Sea: Georgia And Ukraine Dream Of Crude Transit Role.
May 14, 2003... Georgia plans to increase the capacity of its crude terminal at the Black Sea port of Supsa to 20 million metric tons (400,000 b/d) per year by 2010 as part of a joint strategy with Ukraine to promote a Baku-Supsa-Odessa transportation...

Kazakhstan: PetroKazakhstan Signs Iranian Swap Deal.
May 14, 2003... PetroKazakhstan, the Toronto-listed company formerly known as Hurricane Hydrocarbons, has signed a deal with Nico, a trading subsidiary of National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC), to deliver up to 1 million metric tons a year of Kumkol crude by rail to...

Market Call: Transneft To Place Largest Ever Domestic Bond.(Brief Article)
May 14, 2003... The board of directors of Russia's state-owned crude oil pipeline monopoly Transneft has announced that it will approve the issue of a three-year, 9.6 billion ruble ($310 billion) corporate bond and take on a $350 million syndicated loan. ...

Done Deal: Yukos Signs Deal To Acquire Sibneft.(YUKOS Oil Co.)(Sibneft Oil)(Brief Article)
May 14, 2003... Yukos has signed definitive agreements to acquire Sibneft. Yukos has called an extraordinary shareholders meeting for May 27 to approve the deal, which the two companies announced last month. Yukos shareholders will be asked to approve the...

Equities And Currencies.
May 14, 2003... Share Prices Closing On May 13, 2003

Crude Oil: Prices Rise On Saudi Suicide Bombings.
May 14, 2003... Brent crude oil futures have increased about 13% since last week's $23.37 low, and on May 14 traded to an intra-day high of $24.45. Some of the gains -- and volatility -- were attributed to end-of-contract play prior to June Brent's expiry...

Products: Fuel Oil Tracks Crude Prices Higher.(Brief Article)
May 14, 2003... Russian gas oil differentials declined in both Northwest Europe and the Mediterranean this week despite, lower supplies from the Baltics. Fuel oil tracked rising crude prices. Russian gas oil shipments out of the Baltic Sea ports totaled...

Iraqi Agenda: Iraq Looms Large On Russian Agenda Ahead Of Bush Visit.
May 21, 2003... Iraq is high on the agenda in Moscow again. First, Russia's energy strategy until the year of 2020, the new draft of which is to be revealed on May 22, will depend on oil price fluctuations that rely heavily on Iraqi oil. Second, Opec,...

Line Manager: BP Faces Rough Ride As BTC Construction Starts.(Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, British Petroleum Company PLC)
May 21, 2003... Construction of the $3 billion Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline has kicked off, but project leader BP is in for a bumpy ride over the two years it will take before oil from the Caspian Sea begins to flow to the Mediterranean. For a start...

Green Light: Shell Gives Go-Ahead For World's Largest LNG Plant.
May 21, 2003... Underscoring their confidence in Russia, Royal Dutch/Shell and Japan's Mitsui and Mitsubishi have given the green light to launch the $10 billion second phase of their Sakhalin-2 project on the Russian Pacific shelf. The second phase calls...

Status Symbol: Exxon Campaigns For PSA Status For Sakhalin-3.(production sharing agreement)(Brief Article)
May 21, 2003... Exxon Mobil is lobbying for its Sakhalin-3 project to be given production sharing agreement (PSA) status. Exxon Neftegas president Neil Duffin and Exxon Mobil Production vice president Jim Massy met Russia's Energy Minister Igor Yusufov to...

Mister No: BP Turns Down TNK Offer For Slavneft.(Brief Article)
May 21, 2003... BP has turned down an offer to include Slavneft in its venture with Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK) after failing to agree on the price and terms. The 50% stake in Slavneft was not included in BP's original $6.75 billion deal to form TNK-BP, the 50-50...

Booby Trap: Assassination Attempt Targets Bashkir Takeover.(Brief Article)
May 21, 2003... A foiled gangland assassination in Bashkortostan looks to have targeted a business group trying to encroach on the autonomous republic's oil interests. Parliamentary hopeful and ex-head of Mezhprombank's Bashkir affiliate, Alexander...

Home Grown: Transneft Rejects Foreign Credits.(Brief Article)
May 21, 2003... National pipeline operator Transneft's board of directors has rejected a $350 million syndicated three-year loan, after the Russian government adopted a policy of making state-controlled companies rely primarily on the domestic market for...

Upstake: Ruhrgas Increases Its Stake In Gazprom.
May 21, 2003... Germany's largest gas supplier Ruhrgas, now wholly owned by power giant E.On, has increased its stake in the world's largest gas producer Gazprom to 6.5%. Announcing full-year Ruhrgas results on May 20, chief executive Burckhard Bergmann...

Norwegian Wood: Norsk Hydro And TNK To Form Siberian Venture.(Tyumenneft)
May 21, 2003... Following in the footsteps of supermajors like BP, medium-sized Western oil companies are expanding in Russia. Norway's Norsk Hydro is in the final stages of negotiations to set up a 50-50 joint venture with Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK) to develop...

Duke Nuke 'Em: Oil Transport Enters The Nuclear Age.
May 21, 2003... Russia has suggested turning its rust-bucket Northern Fleet of aging nuclear submarines into underwater oil tankers, an idea that has shocked more than just environmentally concerned Scandinavians.a Anatoly Yefremov, the governor of...

Rights Of Passage: Baltic Restrictions Push Floating Storages South.
May 21, 2003... As Russia kicks off the river navigation season this week, exporters are shifting their floating storage operations south, prodded by tightening Baltic shipping regulations. Four floating storage vessels are arriving in the Baltic Sea port...

Caspian Swap Shop: Iran Set For Autumn Launch Of Key Pipeline.
May 21, 2003... At the beginning of September, Iran is set to activate a new pipeline that will have the capacity to pump up to 150,000 barrels per day of Kazakh, Turkmen, and Russian crude from the Neka terminal on the Caspian Sea to the Tehran refinery. ...

Kazakhstan: Kashagan Partners Pay The Price Of Preemption.
May 21, 2003... Kazakhstan has hit back at the international consortium developing the giant Kashagan field by withdrawing tax privileges after two Chinese companies were blocked from joining the project. Agip KCO, the ENI-led operator of Kashagan,...

Czech Republic: Bidders Line Up For Unipetrol Sell-Off.(Brief Article)
May 21, 2003... The privatization of oil and chemicals concern Unipetrol looks set to attract Russian and Central European oil companies, which are trying to build critical mass in the Central European market. Reports say that Russia's Yukos, Lukoil,...

Belarus: Privatizations Fail To Stir Russian Interest.(Brief Article)
May 21, 2003... The government's drive to raise at least $1.15 billion from selling off six state-owned enterprises, including the Novopolotsk refinery (Naftan), looks to have fallen at the first hurdle, with the Russian companies seen as the most likely...

Grand-stan: Gazprom Signs Up Central Asia.
May 21, 2003... Gazprom has scored two more successes in its campaign to direct currently bottled-up Central Asia gas flows into the Russian transportation system, signing long-term cooperation agreements with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The 25-year...

Slovakia: Mol Foils Slovnaft Coup By Minority Shareholders.
May 21, 2003... Minority shareholders in Slovak refiner Slovnaft have been accused of attempting to oust the plant's major shareholder, Hungary's Mol. Investment security in Slovakia has been brought into question by the affair, which caused Mol's...

Pay Day: Shareholders Reap Rewards From Yukos, Sibneft.(Brief Article)
May 21, 2003... Sibneft and Yukos look set to reward their shareholders with billions of dollars in payouts. Sibneft's shareholders approved a 34.23 billion ruble ($1.1 billion) dividend for 2002 at the company's annual meeting on May 15. And new...

Even Keel: Yukos Reports Slight Drop In Net Profit.(Brief Article)
May 21, 2003... Yukos made a net profit of $3.06 billion in 2002 in accounts according to US GAAP standards. This represented a 3% drop on 2001 and was in line with analysts' expectations. Yukos attributed the drop to an increase in production taxes and...

Equities And Currencies.
May 21, 2003... Share Prices Closing On May 20, 2003

Crude Oil: Prices Rise On Mideast Tension, Iraqi Delays.
May 21, 2003... Crude prices continued to firm on a combination of increasing tension in the Middle East and further delays to the resumption of Iraqi exports. Five suicide bombs rocked Israel in three days -- clearly aimed at damaging recent peace...

Products: US-Bound Cargoes Could Make A U-Turn.(Brief Article)
May 21, 2003... Russian gas oil differentials increased in Northwest Europe and remained even with the screen in the Mediterranean. Traders warned that prices could come under pressure, as some arbitrage cargoes headed for the US could end up back in the...

Full House: Russia Oil Firms Pile Into Iraq.
May 28, 2003... Seemingly undeterred by the US-led Iraqi administration's decision to terminate Lukoil's production sharing agreement for the West Qurna oil field, Russian oil companies plan to beat a path back to Baghdad, counting on support from their...

Royal Flush: Russian Exporters Kicked Out Of Butinge.
May 28, 2003... A storm is brewing around the Baltic Sea port of Butinge. Several regular Russian crude exporters complain they have been kicked out of the Lithuanian port's loading program next month. Some are pointing the finger at fellow Russian major...

Party Line: Moscow Holds Off On Eastern Pipeline Decision.
May 28, 2003... Yukos and China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) signed two important documents on May 28 during Chinese leader Hu Jintao's visit to Moscow. Russia stopped short, however, of giving a binding commitment to build an oil pipeline from Angarsk in...

Beach Boys: Sakhalin-2 To Ship LNG To US West Coast.(Sakhalin Energy)(Brief Article)
May 28, 2003... Sakhalin Energy is looking beyond Asia for buyers of liquefied natural gas from its offshore Sakhalin-2 project. Japan's Mitsubishi, a 20% shareholder in the Sakhalin-2 consortium, has signed a letter of intent to build an LNG receiving...

Skidmarks: Russia Slows Gas Reform Strategy.
May 28, 2003... The Russian government last Thursday approved "as a whole" a draft of a long-term national energy strategy that calls for full free-market pricing of gas only after 2010 and lays out no clear plan for altering Gazprom's dominant role or...

Piping Hot: Transneft Expects Capacity Boost By Year-End.(Brief Article)
May 28, 2003... Russia will boost its crude pipeline export capacity by 600,000 b/d (30 million tons/yr) by the end of the year, by expanding the Baltic Pipeline System (BPS), announced Transneft Vice President Segei Sarkisyants this week at a pipeline forum...

Union Pacific: Rosneft Seeks Sakhalin Expansion.(Brief Article)
May 28, 2003... State-owned Rosneft has applied to the Natural Resources Ministry for an exploration license to the two new blocks in the Sakhalin-4 and Sakhalin-5 offshore zones on the Pacific shelf. Rosneft already holds licenses to the Astrakhanovsky...

V-Day: Kovykta Allowed To Export Gas.
May 28, 2003... Shareholders in the Kovykta gas project in East Siberia are trumpeting victory. The Energy Ministry has agreed to allow at least some of the field's gas output to be exported. Gazprom was insisting that gas from Kovykta should be pumped...

April Showers: Crude Output Still Growing In April.(Brief Article)
May 28, 2003... Russia ramped up crude production to 8.2 million b/d (33.54 million metric tons) in April, up a slim 30,500 b/d from the previous month, but a massive 821,000 b/d over year-ago levels (see pages 10-11). Output averaged 8.12 million b/d in...

BP Looks To Unload TNK's Oil Services.(British Petroleum Company PLC)(Tyumenneft)(Brief Article)
May 28, 2003... BP is looking to unload the oil service unit of Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK), its new partner in Russia, and is reportedly in talks with potential buyers. Leading oil service companies such as Baker Hughes, Schlumberger, and Halliburton have all...

Low Carb Diet: Kyoto Promises Russia Carbon Riches.
May 28, 2003... Russia's continued reluctance to formally ratify the Kyoto treaty is hampering its ability to take the leading role it deserves in the international market in carbon emissions that will fully emerge once the climate change protocol comes into...

Russian Crude Loading Programs For June 2003.
May 28, 2003... Novorossiysk Crude Loading Program For June 2003

Changes To The Schedule Of Crude Export Supplies, Second Quarter.
May 28, 2003... Changes To The Schedule Of Crude Export Supplies, Second Quarter ('000 metric tons)

Georgia: Construction Begins On Georgian Section Of BTC.(Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Co.)(Brief Article)
May 28, 2003... In another step forward for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline project, construction has formally started on the Georgian section of the line. Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze attended a May 23 ceremony with top BTC executives at the...

Belarus: Gazprom Walks Away From Beltransgas Talks.(Brief Article)
May 28, 2003... Gazprom has cancelled talks to buy into Belarus state gas distributor Beltransgas, after it balked at Minsk's asking price and its unwillingness to cede control. The main stumbling block was the $3 billion price tag that Belarus had...

Kazakhstan: Local Company Wins Zhambai Offshore Tender.(KazMunaiGas)(Brief Article)
May 28, 2003... A local offshoot of national oil and gas company Kazmunaigas (KMG) has won a tender to carry out seismic exploration of the South Zhambai and South Zaburunye blocks in the Caspian Sea. KazakhstanCaspiyShelf outbid three other contenders with an...

Turkmenistan: India Gives Backing To Trans-Afghan Line.(Brief Article)
May 28, 2003... India has said it will participate in the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) gas pipeline project, but only if Turkmenistan guarantees to completely stop supplying the line in the event that India's archrival Pakistan shuts off transit...

Pipe Dreams: Russian Protocol Undermines Odessa-Brody Line.
May 28, 2003... A protocol signed by Russian and Ukrainian authorities calls for the reversal of a dormant crude oil pipeline that runs from the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odessa to a pipeline junction at Brody to the north, in a bid to support increased...