World Gas Intelligence articles from December 2007

World Gas Intelligence archives from December 2007

Rivalry over LNG futures.
December 5, 2007... The prospect of LNG futures trading is suddenly all the buzz - due not least to publicity from two wannabe Mideast Gulf-based providers, Qatar-based start-up exchange Imex and the Dubai Multi-Commodities Center (DMCC). But is such trading...

Algerian deals for GDF, total.
December 5, 2007... Gaz de France (GDF) and Total are enjoying the fruits of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Algeria this week, during which Sarkozy sought to ease Franco-Algerian tensions by denouncing colonialism as "profoundly unjust" but stopped...

Mideast storage hub plan.
December 5, 2007... The Dubai Multi Commodities Center (DMCC) is pushing ahead with its ambitious plan to create an LNG storage hub in the Mideast Gulf, but questions remain where this will be and whether the established model of crude oil storage trading and...

Turkmen-Russian breakthrough.
December 5, 2007... Russia and Turkmenistan have agreed to start work by the end of this year on a new gas pipeline running along the Caspian coast, which will further tighten Moscow's grip on energy supplies from Central Asia, pushing back the so-called subsea...

Alaska pipe bids disappoint.
December 5, 2007... Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced last week the names of five companies interested in building a pipeline to transport North Slope natural gas to market. The applicants included the Alaska Gasline Port Authority, AEnergia, TransCanada,...

India sets new high price.
December 5, 2007... India's government has mandated the highest-ever price for gas produced indigenously. Last month it set a price of $5.70 per million Btu for all the 6 billion cubic meters per year (580 million cubic feet per day) of gas from the...

New Brazil bidders.
December 5, 2007... The Brazilian government raised a record $1.1 billion from its ninth upstream bidding round November 27, as local firms bid heavily on most of the 117 blocks awarded out of 271 offered. National Petroleum Agency (ANP), Brazil's oil and gas...

Dutch gas link.
December 5, 2007... Dutch state gas grid Gasunie formally opened the new GWWL gas pipeline connection, linking Grijpskerk to Wieringermeer across the northern Netherlands, at a ceremony last week at the newly installed compressor station in Grijpskerk. The new...

Boost for In Salah.
December 5, 2007... A $600 million lump-sum engineering, procurement and construction contract to design and install compression facilities at the 9 billion cubic meter per year (870 million cubic foot per day) In Salah gas field in Algeria--operated by BP,...

Market Insight: mild US winter.(INSIGHT)
December 5, 2007... For North American natural gas, the November bid week came with the usual dose of volatility and surprises, but ended on a bearish note. With oil prices backing off and the winter forecasts calling for relative warmth from mid-December to...

Alberta's oil sands producers eye nuclear energy.(CURRENT)
December 5, 2007... Alberta's massive oil sands production and upgrading facilities require enormous quantities of electricity to power the giant shovels and other equipment and generate steam and hydrogen for converting the bitumen-sand mixture into synthetic...

Could global LNG markets face glut of new capacity?(HORIZON)
December 5, 2007... Global LNG has all the hallmarks of a tight market in both the short-and long term. One of the few things harder than picking up a spot cargo for immediate delivery is pinning down a long-term supply deal. But over the medium term--the four...

Exxon's new LNG model.
December 12, 2007... Exxon Mobil is never one to follow--or even lead--the pack. It is more into the "do it my way" mold. And it doesn't like speculative, or even arbitrage, trading. Those traits all go for LNG as much as for oil, as demonstrated by Tuesday's...

Oman eyes diversion sales for Kogas.
December 12, 2007... Faced with ongoing gas feedstock shortages, Oman is devising a strategy to supply additional LNG to South Korea, while still meeting its long-term supply commitments, WGI has learned. Last month, Oman signed a memorandum of understanding...

EU gas plan alarms billionaire investors.
December 12, 2007... Billionaires Warren Buffett and Li Ka-Shing are concerned that they may become the unintended victims of new rules being drafted in Brussels for non- European Union-based owners of European energy grids. The European Commission's third...

Angola LNG a go, market still a mystery.
December 12, 2007... Investors took the final investment decision on Angola's first LNG project (ALNG) Monday, while Italy's Eni, which formally joined the project only last Friday, is already talking of a second train led by state company Sonangol. Yet for all the...

Indonesia Unable to clarify LNG outlook.
December 12, 2007... Paradoxically, it often seems that that the more information is revealed about Indonesia's LNG production and export situation, the muddier the outlook appears. At the center of this conundrum are long-running negotiations between Japanese LNG...

Mol Wants Black Sea to alps grid unified.
December 12, 2007... Hungarian Mol's initiative last week for the amalgamation of up to 27,000 kilometers of existing gas grids in Central and Southeast Europe has been cautiously welcomed by the European Commission. But Austria's OMV has reacted warily--perhaps...

Russia, Algeria split.
December 12, 2007... Fear that Algerian state Sonatrach and Russian state Gazprom might forge an Opec-style union looks to have been pre-mature, if not pointless (WGI Aug.23'06,p8). Sonatrach President Mohamed Meziane told the Wall Street Journal this week that an...

Clarification.(Correction notice)
December 12, 2007... Last week's story on LNG futures should have said that many sellers, including Qatar, have publicly acknowledged interest in pricing models not linked to oil (WGI Dec.5,p1). Instead, it erroneously read "not linked to LNG." Also,...

Market Insight: Asia keeps on buying.(INSIGHT)
December 12, 2007... Although some Japanese traders expect Asian spot purchasing to slow in December after the frenzied buying of the past two months, odds appear to favor a continuation of the strong demand that lifted spot prices to the $11-$13 per million Btu...

US nuclear industry angles for massive loan guarantees.(CURRENT)
December 12, 2007... The US nuclear industry would receive up to $25 billion in loan guarantees under an omnibus Senate appropriations bill agreed to in extraordinary secrecy this week, a source on the Senate Appropriations Committee told WGI sister publication...

Japanese LNG buyers demand balance in sellers' market.(HORIZON)
December 12, 2007... Japanese buyers have consistently outbid their neighbors for available new term supply and are reportedly paying $13 per million Btu or more to snap up Atlantic Basin spot cargoes (p6). So it might seem that they have decided gas is worth a...

Gate LNG go-ahead.
December 19, 2007... Gasunie and Vopak have taken a final investment decision to build the [euro]800 million ($1.15 billion) Gate LNG regasification terminal in the Dutch port of Rotterdam. The 9 billion cubic meter (6.6 million ton) per year project--the first...

BASF becomes Siberian producer.
December 19, 2007... With Tuesday's official launch of the more than 1 trillion cubic meter (35 trillion cubic foot) Yuzhno-Russkoye field in West Siberia, BASF has become the first-ever German company directly involved in the production of natural gas in Russia....

Putin choice 'good for Gazprom'.
December 19, 2007... With Gazprom Chairman Dmitry Medvedev set to succeed Vladimir Putin as the next president of Russia, the staterun gas monopoly appears set to achieve its goal of thwarting tax increases after instituting price hikes for Russian domestic...

Belgium plans grid, LNG boost.
December 19, 2007... Belgian gas grid operator Fluxys this week began consultation on a possible doubling of its Zeebrugge LNG terminal and an expansion of its north-south onshore pipeline network, apparently in response to pent-up capacity demand from, among...

S-Curve pricing change.
December 19, 2007... Japan is witnessing a demise of its buying power in the LNG market, with its traditionally protective S-Curve price formula slowly making way for new pricing models, industry players tell WGI. Traditionally, the S-Curve price formula in...

Petronet's supply plans.
December 19, 2007... Petronet LNG is not rushing into tying up long-term LNG contracts, despite beginning work to double its Dahej receiving terminal on India's west coast. Dahej terminal is currently operating at 30% over its nameplate 5 million tons (6.9...

Libya gas round.
December 19, 2007... Libya's National Oil Corp. (NOC) on Dec. 9 awarded just half of the 12 exploration areas offered in the gas tender it launched in July (WGI Jul.11,p3). The response to the country's fourth Epsa-4 tender is the weakest to date. Although...

Market insight: Euro prices creep up.(INSIGHT)
December 19, 2007... End-user gas prices across Western Europe continued to rise from the third into the fourth quarter of 2007, as they had from the second into the third quarter, according to the latest data reported by Energy Advice to WGI. Indexation to...

Outlook bullish for EU carbon prices starting 2008.(CURRENT)
December 19, 2007... With the United Nations climate conference in Bali concluded and Phase 2 of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) commencing in January 2008, focus has turned to the likely key drivers in Europe's cap-and-trade battle against climate change....

Reserve ratios suggest global gas offers no panacea.(HORIZON)
December 19, 2007... In 2007, rapidly rising crude oil prices helped magnify the myriad appeals of natural gas, particularly as a less expensive substitute for oil. Yet there's a potentially troubling situation lurking in the background that suggests gas may have...

WGI Supplement: European end-user prices.
December 19, 2007... WGI SUPPLEMENT: European End-User Prices (eurocents/kWh) Gas Prices: 100,000 cm/yr 1 Million cm/yr Typical High Low Typical High Low Belgium Oct. '07 2.99 3.13 2.75 2.66...