World Gas Intelligence articles from April 2002

World Gas Intelligence archives from April 2002

Malaysia: spot LNG shipper?(liquefied natural gas)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 3, 2002... Malaysia International Shipping Corp. (MISC) -- the world's largest LNG tanker owner with 13 fully- or majority-owned vessels -- has repeatedly stated its intention to expand its LNG business beyond long-term transport arrangements for parent...

Algeria, EU seek end to confrontation.(Brief Article)
April 3, 2002... Algerian state Sonatrach has replaced so-called destination clauses with "profit-sharing clauses" in new gas supply contracts to European Union members, in reaction to EU insistence that clauses prohibiting the resale of imported gas illegally...

Enron's "LNG light" up for grabs.(liquefied natural gas)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 3, 2002... Enron's LNG contracts and assets are coming up for auction as bankruptcy managers attempt to generate cash for creditors of the failed US energy merchant. Enron sought to apply its "asset light" business model -- a strategy of minimizing...

All that Bolivian gas, with nowhere to go.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 3, 2002... Bolivia, the self-proclaimed gas hub of South America's southern cone, confidently predicts that its 46.8 trillion cubic foot proven and probable reserve base will nearly double soon. Discoveries are commonplace, and big gas players intend to...

Korea energy reform hits troubled waters.(Brief Article)
April 3, 2002... The South Korean government managed to hammer out an agreement Tuesday with the country's second-largest union group on an as yet undisclosed formula aimed at halting a five-week strike by workers at the Korean Electric Power Co. (Kepco),...

Shell's flexi approach to Ensenada LNG.(liquefied natural gas)(Brief Article)
April 3, 2002... Last week's confirmation by Royal Dutch/Shell that it intends to build a new LNG receiving terminal at Ensenada in Mexico's West Coast state of Baja California masks a number of uncertainties that still hang over the project. One...

Turkey, Greece sign.(pipeline memorandum of understanding)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 3, 2002... Turkey and Greece have signed the expected memorandum of understanding to build a $300 million gas pipeline, connecting the Turkish city of Karacabey near Bursa to Komotini in northern Greece. Turkish Energy Minister Zeki Cakan said that...

Gas processing gains.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 3, 2002... Surgutneftegas, one of the most conservative of the Russian oil majors, is looking for a Western partner to help it modernize the Surgut gas processing plant and raise its capacity to 7 billion cubic meters per year (677 million cubic feet per...

Market insight: US bouyancy. (Insight).(liquefied natural gas)(Statistical Data Included)
April 3, 2002... The weather is normally mild in April and May in most of the US, leaving the North American gas market vulnerable to the whims of technical traders at the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) and long-term factors such as the precipitous drop...

Liberalization "success" leads to plant mothballing in UK. (Current).(Brief Article)
April 3, 2002... In the UK, power market liberalization has lived up to its billing as a boon to consumers -- and then some. A crash of more than 30% in wholesale power prices since the introduction of new electricity trading rules (Neta) one year ago has...

Mexico, not California demand magnet for West Coast LNG. (Horizon).(liquefied natural gas)
April 3, 2002... The US gas industry's infatuation with LNG began in the overheated atmosphere of last year's California energy crisis. Yet increasingly, the gas demand to justify LNG projects on the West Coast of North America is coming not from California,...

Lake Charles rides again.(import terminal)(Brief Article)
April 10, 2002... This past week saw that first LNG spot cargo of the year arrive at the import terminal at Lake Charles, Louisiana. Ironically, CMS -- not BG -- was the company that ended the hiatus on spot cargo arrivals at the terminal that extends back...

China's LNG tender sparks price war.
April 10, 2002... A price war of sorts has broken out between the three contenders to supply LNG to the new 3 million ton per year regasification facility under construction at Shenzhen, near Guangdong in China (WGI Jan.23,p3). The Tangguh project in...

GdF signs one-year deal Oman LNG.(Gaz de France)
April 10, 2002... Gaz de France (GdF) has signed up to import nine 138,000 cubic meter cargoes of LNG -- some 500,000 tons in total -- from Oman LNG this year. The cargoes will be delivered ex-ship to its Montoir-de-Bretagne terminal. The first arrived in late...

Gazprom diplomacy in Eastern Europe.(Gazprom Russian Joint Stock Co.)(Brief Article)
April 10, 2002... Russian Gazprom's commercial relations with Eastern Europe remain in a state of flux, despite some progress in efforts to expand its presence in the region with an eye to boosting both sales volumes and its share of the profit on those sales...

It's Exxon vs. Shell once Gasunie splits.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 10, 2002... Gasunie's three shareholders have agreed, in principle at least, to split the Dutch company into three parts: The state will own the transport network, while Royal Dutch/Shell and Exxon Mobil will break up the current wholesale trading business...

Gas side of Shell's Enterprising bid.(for Enterprise)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 10, 2002... Royal Dutch/Shell's $6 billion-plus friendly takeover bid last week for UK upstream independent Enterprise has reopened questions that some thought had been settled two months ago on how Enterprise's expanding European gas portfolio will be...

French network sale.(Brief Article)
April 10, 2002... Gaz de France (GdF) and Total Fina Elf have exercised rights to take ownership of the country's 35,000 kilometer high-pressure gas transmission network. France is the last European Union country in which such pipes are owned directly by the...

Sakhalin-1 advance.(far-east Russia gas commercialization)(Brief Article)
April 10, 2002... Exxon Mobil expects to make a final decision on a gas commercialization scheme for the Far Eastern Russia Sakhalin-1 project by the end of June, the company tells WGI. The size and configuration of the proposed pipeline to Japan will...

Snohvit extension.(Statoil and partners in project renegotiate deadline for sales contracts)(Brief Article)
April 10, 2002... Norway's Statoil and its partners in the Snohvit LNG project have renegotiated the deadline for confirming two long-term sales contracts, with Spanish utility Iberdrola and US energy merchant El Paso (p5). This takes some of the heat off...

El Paso LNG trading.(El Paso Global LNG)(Brief Article)
April 10, 2002... El Paso Global LNG is looking to expand its international LNG trading efforts into both Europe and Asia, company executives told this week's Howard Weil Energy Conference in New Orleans. The business plan calls for El Paso to make...

Gas trading volume leaps on exchanges.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 10, 2002... Energy commodity trading on exchanges has seen extraordinary volume growth in North America in recent months as a result of the collapse of EnronOnline (EOL). increased perception of counterparty risk, and heavy volatility in market pricing....

Market insight: Europe's buyers market. (Insight).(gas prices)(Statistical Data Included)
April 10, 2002... Prompt UK and Northwest European gas prices fell to a three-year low of under $1.50 per million Btu recently. That's a stark contrast not only to rebounding US gas prices, but also to world crude oil prices, which recently powered up to a...

US short on electricity in some spots, long in others. (Current).(Brief Article)
April 10, 2002... Two years ago, conventional industry wisdom held that the US would be in desperate need of new power generation for years to come. A recession later, pundits talk freely of a power glut. Actually, both views may be correct, depending on which...

Were UK regulators dazed by Enron's "virtual" trading vision? (Horizon).(Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, Financial Services Authority)(Brief Article)
April 10, 2002... Britain's gas and power market regulator Ofgem was quick last month to claim credit for the success of the New Electricity Trading Arrangements (Neta) introduced last year as part of a comprehensive overhaul of the country's previous Pool...

Oversupplied Turkey.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2002... Turkey's state Botas is negotiating with Russia and Iran to reduce the price and volume of gas it imports from each. Botas' General Manager Gokhan Bildaci, speaking at an energy conference in Ankara, said that talks with officials from Russia's...

Japan's deregulation delivers a punch.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2002... Skepticism is giving way to consternation, as gas and power deregulation starts to radically reshape the operations of Japanese energy companies, after years in which the results of market liberalization moves by Tokyo were almost imperceptible...

Iberdrola buys power plant, trims NLNG.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2002... While moving to speed up its program of gas-fired power plant construction, Spain's Iberdrola has cut its purchase from Nigeria LNG's expansion project, NLNG Plus, from 1.5 billion cubic meters per year to only 500 million cubic meters per...

Mexico seeks Pacific Coast LNG project.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2002... The Mexican cities of Altamira on the Gulf Coast and Ensenda on the Baja peninsula may have more lure for the international LNG industry, but Mexico sees its own greatest need for gas as being along its mainland Pacific Coast south of Baja,...

Shell, Gazprom union gets new impetus.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2002... Royal Dutch/Shell has offered to take Russian Gazprom in as a partner in the Sakhalin-2 project to develop offshore gas and oil, as well as an LNG export facility, in the Russian Far East. Shell's highly political offer may give new impetus...

BG at Lake Charles.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2002... After over four months of waiting, BG is finally making use of its capacity at the Lake Charles, Louisiana, LNG import terminal that the company took over from CMS on Jan. 1 (WGI May23,p2). Two LNG tankers, both controlled by BG, are...

Resale profit-sharing.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2002... Algeria's dialogue with the European Union on replacing destination clauses, which prohibit the resale of gas, with profit-sharing clauses that would split the benefits of any resale shows signs of trickling down to state Sonatrach's major gas...

Italian storage sale.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2002... The betting increasingly is that ENI will soon spin off a big chunk of the equity in Stoccaggi Gas Italia (Stogit), its wholly owned, regulated gas storage company -- much as it did 40% of gas transporter Snam Rete Gas Italia last autumn (WGI...

Spanish flotation.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2002... Spain's Gas Natural (GN) expects by the end of June to complete its initial public offering (IPO) of 65% of the equity in Enagas, its currently wholly owned national pipeline and LNG terminal business. At the same time, Repsol YPF may be...

Market insight: undemanding Korea. (Insight).(Brief Article)
April 17, 2002... Rapidly rising LNG imports threaten to swamp the South Korean market this year, amid a deceleration in the country's still relatively brisk domestic gas demand growth (p8). The surplus may force importer Korea Gas Corp. (Kogas) to take only...

Powering the internet proves to be no small problem. (Current).(Brief Article)
April 17, 2002... Despite the trials and tribulations of the technology sector over the last couple of years, growth in global internet traffic has been relentless. And because estimates of the amount of power required to fuel this vary wildly, policy makers and...

Importers report meager growth in world LNG trade in 2001. (Horizon).(Brief Article)
April 17, 2002... It seems that 2001 was not the blockbuster year for LNG that it sometimes seemed to be. Global recession, the aftermath of Sep. 11, and mild weather constrained growth in world LNG trade last year to just 2.9%, according to the International...

Appeasing Gazprom.(Gazprom Russian Joint Stock Co.'s relations with Shell Oil Co. and British Petroleum Company PLC)(Brief Article)
April 24, 2002... It seems increasingly evident that an acceptable role will have to be found for Gazprom before either BP or Royal Dutch/Shell can develop Far Eastern Russian gas for sale to Asian markets. Shell has already come to that conclusion and is...

Oman LNG in talks with Spain's Fenosa.(Union Fenosa S.A. contract)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 24, 2002... Oman is in talks on the potential sale to Spain's Union Fenosa of around half the 3.3 million ton per year output of a third LNG train at the port of Sur south of Muscat. The deal, if concluded, could see the Spanish power company acquire...

New fronts in Greater Sunrise war.(Royal Dutch-Shell Group of Cos. and Phillips Natural Gas Co.plans)(Brief Article)
April 24, 2002... Problems from all sides--corporate, national, and international--continue to dog the Royal Dutch/Shell-led scheme to build a floating LNG plant (FLNG) to take gas from the Greater Sunrise fields in the Timor Sea between Australia and East Timor...

Complications beset RasGas expansion.(Brief Article)
April 24, 2002... New financing arrangements have been worked out for the planned expansion of Qatar's RasGas. Consortium partners Qatar Petroleum (QP) and Exxon Mobil, along with financial advisor BNP Paribas, have decided to bundle the third and fourth...

GdF, Sonatrach, RasGas chartering.(Gaz de France)(Brief Article)
April 24, 2002... Petronas subsidiary Malaysia International Shipping Corp. (MISC) has agreed to charter out one of its LNG vessels to Gaz de France (GdF) for up to four years, starting in January 2003. It is the Malaysian company's first contract outside the...

UK building another network super-utility.(National Grid Group PLC and Lattice group PLC's Transco will form National Grid Transco)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 24, 2002... The planned merger of the UK's biggest electricity and gas transmission companies into one super-utility called National Grid Transco, with a market capitalization of roughly $21.4 billion, is in line with a spreading European trend towards...

Chinese gas find.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 24, 2002... Royal Dutch/Shell is doubling its proposed investment in the Xihu Trough gas project offshore China to $400 million, following an apparently successful round of exploration drilling in the area by China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) (WGI...

Turkish privatization.(Turkey's Energy Regulatory Board implements new energy legislation, gas market deregulation plans)(Brief Article)
April 24, 2002... Turkey's new Energy Regulatory Board is to start deregulating aspects of the country's gas market on May 2, when implementing legislation on terms for licensing private participants, plus an amendment to the gas law, are due to be passed by...

International Oil Daily is here!(Energy Intelligence Group offers new daily publication)(Brief Article)
April 24, 2002... Energy Intelligence Group has just launched a new daily publication: International Oil Daily. Building on a 50-year tradition of excellence in publishing by the Energy Intelligence Group, International Oil Daily offers readers a sophisticated...

IPE gas futures. (Insight).(price data for International Petroleum Exchange of London Ltd.'s gas futures)(Brief Article)(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
April 24, 2002... IPE GAS FUTURES Contract Apr. 22 Week's Apr. 22 Month p/therm High/Low $/MMBtu May '02 11.38 11.42/11.37 1.62 Jun. 11.65 11.63/11.63 1.66 Jul. ...

NYMEX gas futures. (Insight).(New York Mercantile Exchange)(Brief Article)(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
April 24, 2002... NYMEX GAS FUTURES Contract Apr. 22 Week's Apr. 15 Month $/MMBtu High/Low $/MMBtu May '02 3.596 3.61/3.46 3.430 Jun. 3.616 3.63/3.49 3.465 Jul. ...

European border price estimates. (Insight).(natural gas, liquefied natural gas prices)(Brief Article)(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
April 24, 2002... EUROPEAN BORDER PRICE ESTIMATES From/To: CIS Netherlands Belgium ... $3.16 France $2.61 2.74 Germany 2.56 2.72 Italy 2.51 2.74 Netherlands ...

Market insight: Europe's gas overhang. (Insight).(natural gas production, prices, trade data)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 24, 2002... Norwegian production of marketable gas came in at over 5.3 billion cubic meters in February (6.7 billion cubic feet per day), according to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. That's up 41% on year-earlier levels, as exporters ramp up of...

Power companies across Europe facing price probes. (Current).(Brief Article)
April 24, 2002... The plunge in wholesale electricity prices across Europe that has accompanied the introduction of competition in power markets apparently hasn't been the boon to consumers that many think it should be. Rather, efforts to protect profitability...

US project developers seek new ways to share financing risk. (Horizon).(construction of large gas pipelines presents funding challenges)(Brief Article)
April 24, 2002... Few doubt that the world has enormous untapped gas resources and growing demand. The greatest obstacle in connecting the supply with the market is one of infrastructure, or more specifically, who is going to ante up all the money to develop gas...