World Gas Intelligence articles from April 2003

World Gas Intelligence archives from April 2003

BG's startling LNG price push.(BG Group, liquefied natural gas supplies for power plants in India; prices)
April 2, 2003... UK-based BG Group is exploring several avenues for bringing imported LNG to Indian power plants at nearly flat prices that match customer expectations of around $3 per million Btu, BG India officials say. This price would be nearly 40% less...

Gazprom schemes to boost export profits.(natural gas exports)
April 2, 2003... Russia's Gazprom is looking to boost profitability, in part by accessing the German retail gas market directly. The gas giant's Wingas joint venture with Germany's Wintershall will bid for the 26.6% stake in eastern German gas supplier...

Vietnam pushes for more gas projects.(PetroVietnam)
April 2, 2003... Having recently developed a taste for gas--and emboldened by the success of BP's initial $1.3 billion investment in its Nam Con Son gas project--Vietnam wants more. A BP spokesman in Vietnam tells WGI that state PetroVietnam is "pushing...

Lukoil sells gas.(sells gas to Gazprom)
April 2, 2003... With the government in Moscow essentially nowhere in efforts to liberalize the Russian gas market, so-called "independent gas producers"--most often meaning oil majors--are working out their own paths to cooperation with Gazprom (WGI Nov.6,p2)....

Exxon, QP gas sales.(Exxon Mobil, Qatar Petroleum; gas project in Qatar)
April 2, 2003... Exxon Mobil and state Qatar Petroleum (QP) have launched Phase 1 of their Al-Khaleej Gas project--previously known as the Enhanced Gas Utilization scheme. This phase is to supply 750 million cubic feet per day (7.75 billion cubic meters...

Egypt LNG advances.(liquified natural gas projects, acquisitions; Segas, Union Fenosa)
April 2, 2003... Anticipated shareholding shake-ups have not appreciably slowed steady progress at both of Egypt's two LNG projects--Segas, where Italy's ENI is due to acquire half of developer Spanish Union Fenosa's gas assets; and Egyptian LNG (ELNG), where...

EOG may send gas to Trinidad Train 4.(EOG Resources, plans for supplying gas to Atlantic LNG project; Trinidad and Tobago)
April 2, 2003... Breaking the silence on the future of Trinidad's proposed 5.2 million ton per year LNG Train 4, EOG Resources announced Monday that it is in negotiations to provide upstream gas to the Atlantic LNG (ALNG) project. This could be read as an...

Market insight: US demand rebound. (Insight).(natural gas demand, futures, prices; statistics)
April 2, 2003... Weeks of persistently mild temperatures have helped calm overheated North American gas markets, but the outlook is still for strong prices once storage buying picks up this spring--particularly as prices are now low enough to entice some...

Few US energy merchants out of the woods yet. (Current).
April 2, 2003... The struggle for survival goes on for most US energy merchants, with only a few yet out of danger of being found non-creditworthy in a year in which billions of dollars worth of debt is due to mature (WGI Jan.29,p3). A couple of the...

China rushes into gas projects before creating markets. (Horizon).
April 2, 2003... Billions of dollars in investment keeps pouring in from international companies to both the West-to-East pipeline and the Shenzhen LNG project near Guangdong, and schemes are being hatched by China's own highly competitive oil and gas companies...

US gas prices open to manipulation?
April 2, 2003... In a sweeping indictment of US gas and power industry practices during the heyday of the energy merchants, federal regulators last week suggested that as many as 37 companies may have violated anti-gaming rules during the California energy...

Portuguese network connection.(Galp Energia and Electridade de Portugal )
April 9, 2003... Portugal wants to split off and merge the merchant gas business of state oil firm Galp Energia with state power utility Electridade de Portugal (EDP) and, separately, combine the country's gas and power network infrastructures into an...

Murmansk LNG idea spreading fast.(Liquefied natural gas plant)
April 9, 2003... Forces are converging on Russia's ice-free port of Murmansk on the Kola peninsular as the favored location for an LNG plant to be built with an eye to eventually supplying the US market. Leonid Fedun, Lukoil vice president for strategic...

Germans trying more flexible contracts.(Verbundnetz Gas)
April 9, 2003... Two of Germany's top trio of gas suppliers have extended and increased their trading links through a long-term gas contract that could also lay the groundwork for a breakthrough to more flexible pricing. At the same time, flexibility of another...

Isle of grain grabs lead in UK LNG race.(liquefied natural gas)
April 9, 2003... With the UK likely to be 50% dependent on imports to meet growing gas requirements within 10 years, efforts to develop LNG receiving terminals are gaining momentum (WGI Jan.1,p6). Last week, Britain's gas network owner National Grid Transco...

Kuwait wants gas from both Iran, Qatar.(Brief Article)
April 9, 2003... To meet growing electricity demand, Kuwait is looking to both Iran and Qatar to supply it with gas under separate long-term agreements, both currently under negotiation (WGI Jan. 15,p4). And with the prospect of Iraq soon being under new...

Bangladesh war effect.(Brief Article)
April 9, 2003... Bangladesh has yet again postponed a decision on the export of gas to neighboring India, this time because of the war in Iraq. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has put off a decision to permit exports because of strong anti-American...

Brazil, Bolivia meet.(Brief Article)
April 9, 2003... Officials from Brazil and Bolivia are due to meet Apr. 10 on a Brazilian request to add flexibility to the take-or-pay provisions of contracts for gas transported through the Bolivia-to-Brazil (Gasbol) pipeline. Demand for gas in Brazil...

Chevron LNG sprint.
April 9, 2003... ChevronTexaco's proposed 800 million cubic foot per day LNG receiving terminal platform 36 miles off the Louisiana coast in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico looks to be moving briskly through the new streamlined US approval process for offshore LNG...

High French stocks.(Brief Article)
April 9, 2003... Gas inventories in France reached a record high for the month this February and were up 8.6% from a year ago, "probably because of the extreme mildness of the preceding months," according to recent official data. End-February stocks reached...

Pertamina stalemate.(Brief Article)
April 9, 2003... Indonesian state Pertamina is making little headway in sorting out the uncertainty over its future status that is inhibiting investment in the country's gas industry--due in part to a lack of direction from the government, sources say. Last...

Marathon bets on international gas.(Brief Article)
April 9, 2003... Marathon is joining the ever-growing list of integrated oil companies that see their future in natural gas, especially in the international arena. "More gas, more international, that is where our business is headed," Chairman and Chief...

Market insight: Asia's summer shopping. (Insight).
April 9, 2003... Still suffering from nuclear headaches, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) is likely to remain addicted through the normally low-demand spring shoulder period to LNG supplies that might otherwise be available for spot markets outside the...

EdF bumps up against obstacles in path to expansion. (Current).(Electricite de France)
April 9, 2003... Aggressive moves by state Electricite de France (EdF) into liberalized neighboring power markets in recent years have brought hostile reactions from the likes of Rome and Madrid. Both governments complain of unfair competition because of the...

Norway's aging upstream looks longingly to Barents Sea. (Horizon).
April 9, 2003... Norway's offshore sector faces a new set of challenges over the next few years as the province settles into maturity. As one of the world's most explored regions, the Norwegian Continental Shelf doesn't present much scope for the discovery of...

Russia, Turkmenistan axis.(Gazprom, Turkmenneftegas; natural gas supplies contract)
April 16, 2003... Gazprom has taken a giant step forward in its strategy to direct gas flows from Central Asia into its Russian transportation system as a means of obtaining relatively low-cost gas to fulfill its own long-term export contracts and domestic...

Duke, Sonatrach in US LNG arbitration.(dispute between Duke Energy and Sonatrach, liquefied natural gas contract)
April 16, 2003... For those monitoring the flow of LNG to the US, it will come as no surprise that volumes from Algeria plummeted 54% in 2002 to 29.2 billion cubic feet, from 64.8 Bcf in 2001 (WGI Feb.12,p1). Assertions of "security concerns" after Sep. 11 2001...

Shell close to Sakhalin breakthrough.(Royal Dutch/Shell, liquefied natural gas project; Russian Pacific Coast)
April 16, 2003... April is shaping up to be a good month for Royal Dutch/Shell's campaign to develop LNG export capacity as part of the Sakhalin-2 project that it leads off Russia's Pacific Coast. First, the Budget Committee of the State Duma, the lower...

Oil majors on rise in US gas marketing.(oil companies)
April 16, 2003... Whether they wanted to or had to, the big international oil companies are assuming much of the responsibility for gas and power marketing and project development in North America and elsewhere that is being shed by ailing US energy merchants...

Algeria-to-Italy pipe plans advance.(Sonatrach contract, capacity increase for natural gas pipeline)
April 16, 2003... Algerian state Sonatrach has awarded a $120 million contract to boost the capacity of the Enrico Mattei (Transmed) gas link connecting Algeria to Italy via Tunisia and Sicily to 27 billion cubic meters per year (2.6 billion cubic feet per day),...

Camisea speed bumps.(Hunt Oil, plan to export natural gas; Lima, Peru)
April 16, 2003... While Peru's Camisea project is on schedule to bring gas to the Lima area, developers continue to hit speed bumps in commercializing the gas once it gets to the Pacific Coast. Hunt Oil's proposal to export half the gas as LNG is still "under...

Who wants into PNG?(Papua New Guinea, oil and gas projects up for sale)
April 16, 2003... ChevronTexaco's decision to pull out of Papua New Guinea, selling assets that include a 9% stake in the long-planned $3.5 billion-$4 billion project to export gas to Australia, is expected to have little effect on the progress of that pipeline...

Ofgem climbdown.(British energy regulator, hourly gas balancing )(Brief Article)
April 16, 2003... Britain's energy regulator Ofgem succumbed to industry pressure last week when it finally ruled out a costly switch to hourly or four-times-daily gas balancing. Instead the network will continue to be balanced daily. Ofgem first proposed...

GdF, Gazprom extend.(Gaz de France, natural gas contract )(Brief Article)
April 16, 2003... Gazprom has extended for seven more years, until 2015, its agreement to supply 8 billion cubic meters per year (774 million cubic feet per day) of Russian gas to state Gaz de France (Gdf). In 2002, Gazprom delivered around 12 billion cubic...

Market insight: coal's enduring appeal? (Insight).(natural gas futures, statistics; coal as link for gas prices, Europe)
April 16, 2003... BG Group is exploring the possibility of pricing any future Iranian LNG deliveries to India against a less volatile index than crude oil or oil products. While the indexation might technically be to inflation, the underlying linkage would be to...

New players in Mideast Gulf power: Islamic investors. (Current).(Islamic investment fund, power generation; Islamic Development Bank acquires share of AES Oasis)
April 16, 2003... As troubled US energy merchants pull back from international investments, a new player--in the form of an Islamic investment fund--has stepped in to help fill a looming vacuum in the Mideast Gulf, where demand for power generation is growing...

World LNG trade rallies in 2002--but not into US. (Horizon).(liquefield natural gas, traded volume; deliveries, statistics)
April 16, 2003... After growth of nearly 12% in 2000, followed by barely 3% expansion in 2001, LNG traded volume increased by a healthy 6% last year to almost 113 million tons, an increment of nearly 6.3 million tons, according to latest figures from the...

US LNG import barriers.(liquefied natural gas)
April 23, 2003... The medium- to long-term outlook for LNG imports to the US is robust by all accounts: A recent report by Lehman Brothers is fairly typical in projecting healthy demand of 1.2 billion cubic feet per day (9.2 million tons) this year, double last...

Ukraine, Moscow solve more gas disputes.
April 23, 2003... The Russian and Ukrainian governments have apparently reached a compromise on outstanding debt repayment issues that have blocked progress on an international effort to repair Ukraine's ailing pipeline system. The deal should also clear the way...

Repsol loses grip on Spain's Gas Natural.
April 23, 2003... Spanish marketing incumbent Gas Natural's (GN) bid for compatriot power firm Iberdrola has driven home just how much control once-dominant GN shareholder Repsol YPF lost over the gas company when it sold down its stake to 24.4% last May. ...

Strange new faces in US gas, power.
April 23, 2003... The post-Enron collapse of the US energy merchant sector has forced many of these companies to put profitable assets up for sale in a bid to win back investor confidence and improve their balance sheet (WGI Apr.2,p7). And the companies...

India's Dahbol Power Co. in dire straits.
April 23, 2003... India's Dabhol power project shows no sign of escaping the white elephant status that it took on with Enron's withdrawal two years ago. Dabhol Power Co., once hailed as India's biggest foreign investment, is today mired in legal battles and...

BP, Reliant US power trading rights at risk.
April 23, 2003... BP--now reckoned to be the fifth largest trader of electricity and for certain the largest gas producer in the US--was forced to join No. 7 US power trader Reliant Energy Services last week in defending its right to sell power into deregulated...

Sempra Baja LNG gets environment OK.(Sempra Energy in in Baja California, Mexico )
April 23, 2003... Sempra Energy has received the needed environmental permit from Semarnat, Mexico's federal environmental agency, for its proposed 1 billion cubic foot per day (7.7 million ton) Costa Azul LNG receiving terminal near Ensenada, in Baja...

Corrections.(Brief Article)(Correction Notice)
April 23, 2003... In the email and print versions of last week's WGI, the table of `2002 Global LNG Deliveries' that appeared in the Horizon section contained a number of figures that were in the wrong columns, due to technical errors. Both versions of the table...

Market insight: Japan's LNG slide. (Insight).
April 23, 2003... A cold winter and the shutdown of over a dozen nuclear power plants saw LNG purchases by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) and Chubu Electric surge last year. Overall, however, Japanese LNG imports fell--confounding the notion that fuel...

Dangers in unifying Scottish, English power markets. (Current).
April 23, 2003... Moves afoot in the UK to unite the currently isolated Scottish power market with its larger counterpart in England and Wales should benefit consumers by reducing electricity prices, but it could also damage prospects for isolated renewable...

Germany, Russia seek tighter gas, power relationships. (Horizon).
April 23, 2003... Germany's and Russia's energy trade and investment relationship has lasted for four decades. Through the fall of the Berlin Wall and revolution in Moscow, Gazprom and its predecessor Soyuzgazexport have since 1972 provided uninterrupted...

BP's Tangguh sales role.
April 30, 2003... State Pertamina looks to have lost out in the battle to retain monopoly control over Indonesian LNG sales, under new regulations sent to the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources earlier this month. `The first result has been to reaffirm...

US price reporting system under fire.
April 30, 2003... Natural gas price reporting services defended their indices before US regulators last week, saying that they have revamped their methods and that more companies are again submitting prices. However, several parties to a conference sponsored by...

Coal, fuel oil-link in sight for Kovykta.
April 30, 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...

Mexico to tender for West Coast LNG.
April 30, 2003... As the deadline nears for bidding on Mexico's contract for 500 million cubic feet per day of gas from an LNG receiving facility to supply three power plants at Altamira on the Gulf Coast, the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) is mulling a...

Brazil, Bolivia talking new Gasbol terms.
April 30, 2003... Brazil's pleas for a reduction in the price and volume of gas it is contracted to import from its neighbor through the Bolivia-to-Brazil (Gasbol) pipeline may finally have been heard--although actual agreement on new terms still looks to be...

Exxon flies solo in UK.
April 30, 2003... Exxon Mobil has opted to build its own mega LNG receiving terminal in the UK, rather than use third-party-access terminals. It has submitted a planning application to develop a 15 million ton (20.7 billion cubic meter) per year terminal on the...

Blue Stream break.
April 30, 2003... Turkey last month halted imports of gas delivered from Russia by Gazprom via the Blue Stream pipeline under the Black Sea. Imports are to resume in August, when a six-month grace period built into the contract expires and take-or-pay penalties...

EdF buys from Statoil.
April 30, 2003... Electricite de France (EdF) last week signed up for 1 billion cubic meters per year (97 million cubic feet per day) of gas from Norway's Statoil for 15 years, beginning Oct. 1, 2005, to be delivered to the Zeebrugge hub in Belgium--presumably...

Conoco, Gazprom eye LNG link.(Brief Article)
April 30, 2003... Gazprom has confirmed that US ConocoPhillips has approached the Russian giant about joining up to build an LNG terminal at the ice-free port of Murmansk, on the Barents Sea (WGI Apr.9,p1). The two also look to be cooperating, at least un the...

Market insight: rising US LNG imports. (Insight).(Industry Overview)
April 30, 2003... Not surprisingly, given a near $4 per million Btu advantage for 2003, a lot more LNG came into the US in the first quarter of this year than arrived in early 2002. Preliminary import data compiled by WGI from company sources show a phenomenal...

Long road to restore electric power to Iraqi people. (Current).
April 30, 2003... Restoration of electricity has become one of the top priorities for US-led forces in Iraq, both for humanitarian reasons and because power is essential to operation of the rigs that pump Iraqi oil. Although power plants were not directly...

Egypt deal takes Malaysia's Petronas global in LNG. (Horizon).
April 30, 2003... Malaysian state Petronas is gaining a toehold in the expanding Mediterranean LNG market with last week's agreement to buy Italian Edison's 50% interest in the BG-operated West Delta Deep Marine (WDDM) concession offshore Egypt, as the deal also...