World Gas Intelligence articles from August 2004

World Gas Intelligence archives from August 2004

PetroChina ends West-East deal.
August 4, 2004... China's state PetroChina has terminated a joint venture agreement with Royal Dutch/Shell, Exxon Mobil and Russia's Gazprom for the country's 4,200 kilometer West-to-East gas pipeline, Shell and Gazprom confirmed Tuesday. "The joint venture...

Nigeria LNG takes train 6 decision.
August 4, 2004... Nigeria LNG (NLNG) has given the formal go-ahead for the construction of a sixth LNG train at its facility at Bonny in Nigeria, NLNG partners Royal Dutch/Shell, Total and Eni announced on Jul. 30. The sixth train, due on stream in...

Exxon, QP rethink US import strategy.
August 4, 2004... Exxon Mobil and RasGas-3 partner state Qatar Petroleum are making significant adjustments to their North American LNG strategy, specifically regarding ownership of receiving terminals, WGI has learned. Initially, the RasGas-3 partners...

Gazprom's Turkmen-Ukraine partner.
August 4, 2004... Russian gas giant Gazprom and Austria's Raiffeisen Zentralbank have set up a new joint venture, RosUkrEnergo, to supply natural gas from Turkmenistan to Ukraine. Deliveries of any Turkmen gas surplus to Ukraine's needs could then be...

Global power assets change hands.
August 4, 2004... The UK's International Power (IP) and Japan's Mitsui have agreed to pay $5.4 billion for 13 Edison Mission assets, including six gas units in Puerto Rico, Turkey, Thailand, Australia and the UK, while rival Tractebel is to build a 1,000...

Peru to Ecuador.
August 4, 2004... Even as Peru's Camisea project begins the nation's first gas deliveries to Lima, with LNG exports as its next ambitious objective, a second Peruvian export scheme is already gathering steam. Peruvian gas producer BPZ Energy has signed...

Italy grid sale.
August 4, 2004... Italian energy group Edison, main shareholders of which are Fiat and state Electricite de France, has agreed to the sale of its gas transportation network to Italian private equity group Clessidra. The asset is valued at 195 million [euro]...

Belgian blast unease.
August 4, 2004... A huge Belgian gas pipeline explosion and fire on Friday morning that killed 17 and injured 124 has shaken public confidence in what is a major Western European gas transit country, though market implications appear limited. Two days later some...

Spanish duo in Algerian 5th round.
August 4, 2004... Among groups awarded blocks in last week's Algerian fifth licensing round. two were keen to point out their gas export potential. Spanish duo Repsol YPF and Gas Natural were awarded the 4,831 square kilometer Gassi Chergui Ouest block, in...

Market insight: crude jolts US Natgas.(Insight)
August 4, 2004... Crude markets, and more specifically the Russian government's zealous prosecution of oil company Yukos, proved to be a white knight for US natural gas bulls last week, propping domestic markets despite soft physical demand as unusually cool...

Resurgence of India's power sector still happening.(Current)
August 4, 2004... For a time, it looked as if India's new Congress Party-led government might bring the recent resurgence of investment in the country's power sector to an abrupt halt. When it was reviewing the Electricity Act 2003--legislation passed by the...

Nuclear power again challenging gas-fired generation.(Horizon)
August 4, 2004... Once hailed as the answer to the world's energy needs, nuclear power's reputation subsequently soured due to public fears about safety and waste management, hitting a low point after the 1986 Chernobyl accident in present-day Ukraine. ...

Sonatrach's Americas strategy.
August 11, 2004... Algerian state Sonatrach, the first company to supply LNG to North America, is angling to take stakes in import terminals in North and South America, This would ensure markets for its gas, including--potentially--LNG from the Camisea project in...

Russia OKs LNG sale to Shell, Mitsubishi.
August 11, 2004... No names were mentioned when Sakhalin Governor Ivan Malakhov announced last month that the Royal Dutch/Shell-led Sakhalin-2 project on Russia's Pacific shelf could sign a new LNG sales contract within the next month for deliveries to Mexico and...

Bolivia LNG, Peru LNG: friends or foes?
August 11, 2004... Pacific Basin LNG exports from two big gas reserves holders on South America's southern cone, Bolivia and Peru, both look considerably more likely than they did last month, and perhaps even through a combined project. Hurdles remain, however,...

Florida shows permits aren't everything.
August 11, 2004... In the tortuous process of developing an LNG receiving terminal, it's important not to mistake a green light from regulators lot the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. This seems to be the lesson of recent developments in the crowded...

India facing ad hoc LNG, gas policies.
August 11, 2004... India's gas policy remains at a crossroads. Long-delayed measures that still await passage cover gas market regulation, gas transmission policy and LNG import rules (WGI Jun.30,p2). In the meantime, various government ministries are making...

"New" UK LNG site.
August 11, 2004... Plans have been submitted to develop what might become the UK's fourth LNG terminal, at Canvey Island near London. Canvey was the world's first commercial LNG import terminal, operated from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s by former British...

India's Myanmar card.
August 11, 2004... A consortium of India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp. subsidiary ONGC Videsh and Gail India, which holds a 30% stake in a recently discovered 6 trillion cubic foot (170 billion cubic meter) gas field offshore Myanmar, is negotiating with the...

Canadian LNG gains.
August 11, 2004... Prospects for Canadian LNG imports are looking up: Irving Oil last week received the final go-ahead from both federal and provincial authorities for its proposed Canaport import terminal in New Brunswick, while Access North Energy (ANE) cleared...

Market insight: Tepco's juggling act.
August 11, 2004... Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) faces delicate balancing act: An unexpected rise in Japanese electricity demand is requiring it to buy not only more spot LNG, but also more of the sweet, waxy crude oil that it burns in power plants. This, in...

Far forward European power prices soar to record highs.(Current)
August 11, 2004... Soaring costs for primary fuels--oil, gas and coal--are pulling power prices to record highs across Europe. And that goes not just for day- or month-ahead supplies, but also for forward price swaps that extend at least through 2005--thereby...

Pipeline loss gives majors bigger scope for LNG in China.(Horizon)
August 11, 2004... Now that they have been removed from the running for a role in the West-to-East gas pipeline project, foreign companies looking for a gainful position in China's expansive gas market are likely instead to more actively explore LNG terminal...

Ups, downs of shipping glut.
August 18, 2004... July was not a good month for LNG shippers, with as many as 12 vessels reportedly idle at one point (WGI Mar.28,p8). Prospects are looking up in August. With the Lake Charles, Louisiana, US receiving terminal at full capacity and...

Long in Asia, Petronas goes short into UK.
August 18, 2004... Malaysian state Petronas last week added another plank to its integrated global gas investment strategy by signing a 15-year contract to deliver some 3 billion cubic meters of gas (2.2 million tons of LNG) per year to the UK's Centrica from...

Progress on Ukraine pipeline upgrade.
August 18, 2004... Momentum is building behind efforts to upgrade Ukraine's gas transit network. Last week Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Leonid Kuchma signed a deal settling a $1.43 billion debt to Gazprom for gas deliveries in...

Gazprom gets acreage next to Kovykta.
August 18, 2004... Through two recent moves, the Russian government looks to be nudging TNK-BP to come to some accommodation with state Gazprom that will advance the long nascent East Siberian Kovykta gas export project. First, the Ministry of Natural...

Embattled Sunrise project inches ahead.
August 18, 2004... Public threats by Australian operator Woodside to scrap the Greater Sunrise LNG project to develop 10 trillion cubic feet (283 billion cubic meters) of Timor Sea gas at a time of growing US LNG demand may have been largely bluster aimed at...

Germans look outside.
August 18, 2004... Germany's big gas and power marketers are further beefing up operations elsewhere in Europe, as more intense competition looms in their internal market. E.On intends to export 4 billion cubic meters per year (387 million cubic feet per...

Louisiana buyers unite.
August 18, 2004... The state government of Louisiana hopes to have a first LNG buyers consortium in place by October and in a position to sign long-term contracts with suppliers, following a visit to Houston last week to meet with suppliers and distributors by...

Anadarko's LNG play.
August 18, 2004... Just a few months after publicly signaling its interest in entering the LNG business, Houston-based Anadarko has acquired Access Northeast Energy, a private Canadian company that has been developing the Bear Head LNG receiving terminal project...

Algeria's booming LNG sales into US.
August 18, 2004... Imports of Algerian LNG into the US are expected to reach record levels for the month of August. The Lake Charles import terminal in Louisiana, fully contracted to BG, is expected to receive as many as nine Algerian cargoes this month, three...

Market insight: Italy's rapid release.
August 18, 2004... Eni seems to have been uncommonly discreet in publicizing its mandated gas release program--so discreet, in fact, as to risk adding to controversy over how much and what the exercise will accomplish (WGI Jul.21,p6). The company had to act...

Coal still cheaper than gas in US, despite soaring prices.(Current)
August 18, 2004... Soaring international and domestic coal prices seem to be doing little if anything to push US electricity generators off the fuel and onto greater use of gas--not least because gas-fired power is still substantially more expensive than...

Mediterranean LNG terminals: more than enough, it seems.(Horizon)
August 18, 2004... Mediterranean LNG import capacity would triple from today's 42 billion cubic meters (30.7 million tons) per year to roughly 120 Bcm/yr (88 million tons/yr) by 2010 if all projects now on the table were built by then--but that seems unlikely....

India's boiling gas market.
August 25, 2004... India's gas market is at a boil. Customers are clamoring for gas in place of expensive naphtha, with decontrolled gas prices at anywhere from $3.11 per million Btu from BG's and Reliance Industries' Tapti fields to $4.20-plus/MMBtu delivered...

Florida's stitched up LNG purchase tender.
August 25, 2004... The request for proposals (RFP) to supply 400 million-600 million cubic feet per day of regasified LNG issued last week by leading Florida electric utility Florida Power & Light looks like a great opportunity for some LNG supplier to gain an...

Southern European islands look to gas.
August 25, 2004... Plans are progressing to introduce gas to a number of Southern European islands. In the cases of Greece's Crete and Spain's Canary Islands, the process entails serious consideration of small import facilities--of perhaps less than 2 billion...

Competing supply deals inside Indonesia.
August 25, 2004... A recent firm agreement by Indonesian state gas utility Perusahaan Gas Negara (PGN) to buy gas from ConocoPhillips' Corridor area in Southern Sumatra is the cornerstone of PGN's plan to meet rising demand for gas in Java, the industrial and...

More Mideast states try private power.
August 25, 2004... A second tier of Mideast Gulf states--Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and possibly Iran--is taking the plunge into private power production, following trendsetters Oman, Abu Dhabi and Qatar. After years of dithering about the merits of independent...

Algeria, Egypt blasts.
August 25, 2004... A blast Sunday in a boiler in Unit 6 of Algeria's Skikda LNG plant has not affected production, Sonatrach's commercial department and a Sonatrach LNG engineer both told WGI on Monday. Unit 6 was the second of three units brought back on stream...

Bolivia-Argentina pipe.
August 25, 2004... Scant investment in new gas developments and booming demand in response to artificially low prices left Argentina with the worse energy crisis of the past 15 years in early 2004. In April, the government agreed to gradually decontrol prices,...

Market insight: Asian LNG pull.(Insight)
August 25, 2004... Unseasonably strong Asian demand and sliding US gas prices were the telling factors in an unusually active spot market for LNG in August. From $6.11 per million Btu on Jul. 30, the Henry Hub front-month futures contract shed roughly 80...

European power profits soar, companies spending again.(Current)
August 25, 2004... Europe's power companies have for the most part continued to build on the financial strength garnered from bumper profits in 2003, with many posting double-digit growth in the first half of 2004. These gains have come largely on the back of...

US supply headed down, flat, or growing? Data conflict.(Horizon)
August 25, 2004... Is US gas production plummeting, treading water, or rising modestly? A fault line has emerged among analysts over how best to interpret various data threads that paint contrasting pictures of the state of output from US gas fields--although few...