World Gas Intelligence articles from December 2006

World Gas Intelligence archives from December 2006

Qatar tilts eastward.
December 6, 2006... Qatar has lowered its expectations for sales volumes into the US in line with declining estimates for North American requirements, and WGI is told that output from one full 7.8 million ton per year RasGas train once targeting the US has already...

Iran gains on China, India, Pakistan sales.
December 6, 2006... Iran's Pars LNG project has signed a heads of agreement for the sale of 3 million tons per year of LNG to China National Petroleum Corp.'s PetroChina affiliate and continues to negotiate actively on pipeline gas sales to India and Pakistan,...

Japan, Indonesia LNG talks yield little.
December 6, 2006... Japanese officials left the negotiating table feeling a tad disappointed last week after meetings with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono failed to yield concrete progress toward LNG long-term contract renewals. Despite expectations...

Belarus, Russia close to gas agreement.
December 6, 2006... After months of mounting tension over the future of Russian gas supplies to neighboring Belarus, the two countries appear to have backed off from their tough rhetoric, easing fears of a rerun of the Ukrainian shutoff that led to shortfalls...

Eni exploring various Gazprom options.
December 6, 2006... At a press briefing in London last week, Eni executives shed further light on the contents of a strategic agreement the Italian company signed last month with Russia's Gazprom, including hints that a stake in Eni's electricity business might go...

BP, total quit Medgaz.
December 6, 2006... BP and Total have each sold their 12% stakes in the planned 8 billion cubic meter per year (775 million cubic foot per day) Medgaz subsea pipeline, due for completion in mid-2009 between Algeria and Spain. Medgaz's remaining shareholders are...

EU carbon targets.
December 6, 2006... In setting the first 10 national plans for the allocation of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission allowances in 2008-12 under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the European Commission has cut overall levels by almost 7% on average below those...

UK price gulf widens.
December 6, 2006... The gap between UK retail and wholesale gas prices has led statutory watchdog Energywatch to demand action on several fronts. Average retail gas prices have risen by 94% in the past three years, with those for electricity up 60%, equating...

Market insight: tenuous US rally.(INSIGHT)
December 6, 2006... Before rolling off the board last month, the December US gas futures contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) mounted an impressive rally, with prices soaring at expiry amid a buying frenzy. But while the January contract was...

Power, LNG independent Poweo takes on France's Titans.(CURRENT)
December 6, 2006... France hardly seems ideal territory for a start-up energy supplier. Thin margins have already led Total this year to stop direct electricity sales in competition with Electricite de France (EdF), although it still markets gas. And a new law...

State of Alaska takes on producers over pipeline terms.(HORIZON)
December 6, 2006... In two years of haggling over fiscal terms with Alaska's three biggest oil producers--BP, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil--Governor Frank Murkowski came closer than anyone to realizing that state's 30-year dream of tapping the North Slope's...

Clouds over Gazprom victory.
December 13, 2006... Gazprom may be getting its way at Sakhalin-2, but its Atlantic LNG ambitions look to be in tatters (p2). Development of Russia's proposed Baltic LNG plant is likely to be delayed beyond 2010, potentially putting the project in jeopardy, as...

Iran gains some, losses some in LNG.
December 13, 2006... Iran's recently reinvigorated LNG sales drive is gathering pace, with potential customers in both China and India now apparently willing to pay an f.o.b. price capped around the $5-$5.50 per million Btu mark. There may be one important...

Sakhalin-2 shift reverberates widely.
December 13, 2006... New offers coughed up by Royal Dutch Shell this week that may give Gazprom a controlling stake in the Sakhalin Energy consortium that operates the Sakhalin-2 LNG project on Russia's Pacific Shelf represent a striking victory in Moscow's drive...

Peru LNG facing rough, slow start.
December 13, 2006... The results of an environmental audit due next week could be crucial for the fate of a controversial project to export LNG from Peru's Amazon jungle. Although the pending LNG export phase of the Camisea gas project is a separate scheme...

BP set to help give Oman big gas boost.
December 13, 2006... BP has beat out fellow majors including Royal Dutch Shell, Total and BG for a multibillion-dollar deal to develop Oman's complex Khazzan and Makarem gas fields, an industry source told Energy Intelligence last week (WGI Oct.4,p5). Output from...

E.On tries simplicity.
December 13, 2006... Germany's E.On is to combine three of its market areas in the national gas pipeline system and provide extra network capacity for imports moving into Germany--two measures that it says should boost spot trading. As of next October, E.On...

GdF's Medgaz deal.
December 13, 2006... Gaz de France (GdF) on Dec. 11 officially signed up to buy approximately 1 billion cubic meters per year (97 million cubic feet per day) of Algerian gas from state Sonatrach over 20 years, to be transported via the 8 Bcm/yr Medgaz pipeline...

Mixed signals to Egypt.
December 13, 2006... Egypt is getting mixed signals on whether or not its relatively low domestic gas price poses a genuine impediment to private company willingness to search for and develop more gas. Big gas producer BP did not participate in the latest upstream...

Market insight: diminished Asian appetite.(INSIGHT)
December 13, 2006... After a bitter experience with colossally high spot prices last winter, Asian LNG buyers are better prepared this year and look poised to both buy less and pay less this winter. Besides having stockpiled ahead of winter to the extent tankage...

Relatively low price keeps coal-fired generation on boil.(CURRENT)
December 13, 2006... Coal's comeback in Europe and elsewhere continues to gain impetus, fueled by comparatively high gas prices. Besides planning new gas-fired units, generators have been looking at converting existing oil-fired plants to coal. While this rush to...

Views on managing big global LNG growth by 2015.(HORIZON)
December 13, 2006... The presumptions about reality that emerged from a panel on "Utopia and Reality" for global LNG markets in the next decade at the recent 11th International Gas Summit in Paris encompass such notions as: The LNG market will grow both absolutely...

Shah Deniz starts.
December 20, 2006... BP and Statoil have announced the start of commercial gas production from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field and the launch of the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) that will deliver the gas to Turkey and Georgia. Turkey won't lift any gas until the...

Turkey tenders for 'new' terminal.
December 20, 2006... Turkey's state pipeline operator and importer Botas is making use of the privately owned Aliaga LNG import terminal in Izmir to boost its security of supply this winter. The 6 billion cubic meter (4.35 million ton) per year terminal was...

Reliance 'gold' spurs Indian network.
December 20, 2006... India's KG-D6 block in the offshore Krishna Godavari basin is turning out to be a gold mine for Mukesh Ambani. Reliance Industries, the company he inherited from his illustrious father Dhirubhai Ambani, may soon replace state-run Oil and...

'World first' for Equatorial Guinea?
December 20, 2006... The world's first LNG project using cross-border feedstock gas may end up built not in Trinidad tapping into abundant Venezuelan gas, as many predicted, but instead in West Africa's Gulf of Guinea (WGI Jun.29 '05,p1). A second train at...

Deadline near for Boston terminals.
December 20, 2006... Two LNG receiving terminals proposed for offshore Massachusetts remain neck-and-neck in the permitting process, but only one of the terminals--which are similar in design and sited near one another--is ultimately expected to be built. ...

Israel reaches out.
December 20, 2006... Israel is taking tentative steps to line up more gas supply to feed its slowly growing domestic market. Local Dorad Energy this month signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to purchase 630 million cubic meters per year of Egyptian gas (60...

Statoil, Hydro merging.
December 20, 2006... Statoil has agreed to buy Norwegian rival Norsk Hydro's oil and gas business for around $30 billion in a deal that creates a national "energy champion" and the largest offshore operator in the world, the two companies said on Monday. Hydro will...

Qatar-to-Belgium run.
December 20, 2006... Belgium's Zeebrugge terminal received its largest-ever LNG tanker on Dec.8, when the 151,800 cubic meter Al Marrouna landed its maiden commercial cargo. The ship--which bears the RasGas logo--was completed by Daewoo in South Korea on Oct. 31...

French deals for Gazprom, Sonatrach.
December 20, 2006... Russia's Gazprom and Algeria's Sonatrach have each agreed deals enabling them to market gas directly into France. Gaz de France was countersignatory to both, one with Gazprom on Dec. 19, the other with Sonatrach eight days earlier. ...

Market insight: UK market shrinks.(INSIGHT)(Industry overview)
December 20, 2006... National Grid's Ten-Year Statement, which the UK's national energy transmission network operator is legally required to publish annually each year, forecasts that gas demand will fall during 2007, with market growth returning only in 2008. ...

Nerc's long-term view sees future shortages.(CURRENT)
December 20, 2006... Electric utilities in the North American Electric Reliability Council (Nerc) forecast an increase in demand through 2015 by 19% in the US and 13% in Canada. Yet committed resources will increase by only 6% in the US and by 9% in Canada. ...

Asia floats LNG, GTL schemes for stranded gas.(HORIZON)
December 20, 2006... There are both a lot of stranded gas in Southeast Asia--182 trillion cubic feet (5.16 trillion cubic meters) of proved and probable reserves, according to consultants IHS--plus lots of ideas of how to monetize it. From mini LNG plants to...