World Gas Intelligence articles from February 2002

World Gas Intelligence archives from February 2002

LNG heads back to Europe.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... With US gas prices down in the $2 per million Btu range, Algerian and Trinidadian LNG -- swapped into the US market for most of last year -- is again flowing directly to European buyers Distrigas of Belgium and Gas Natural of Spain (p6). ...

India's Gail lays out ambitious new plans.(Gas Authority of India Ltd.)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 6, 2002... Gas Authority of India (Gail) has a confident new chairman and ambitious new plans (WGI Jan.2,p1). Proshanto Banerjee, chairman and managing director of Gail, says that the transportation and marketing company is entering a new era, marked by...

West Libya advances.(joint venture gas project)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... ENI's West Libya gas project, a 50-50 venture of ENI and Libya's National Oil Co. that aims to produce 8 billion cubic meters per year of gas for export to Italy and 2 Bcm/yr for Libya's domestic market, finally looks to be getting off the...

Slow-going seen for gas trading in Spain.(Algerian gas distributed by Gas Natural)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... For more than two months, Spain's dominant gas importer and marketer, Gas Natural, has been selling about one-third of the gas it brings in by pipeline from Algeria to six other companies. Regulators hope that these companies will help sustain...

Gazprom sales down 2.7% in full-year 2001.(Gazprom Russian Joint Stock Co.)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... Russian Gazprom's sales apparently picked up some in the second half of 2001 after falling 7% in the first half, but not enough to avoid a 2.7% full-year dip from 2000 levels, to 126.9 billion cubic meters (12.3 billion cubic feet per day),...

Iran turns to Greece as gas outlet.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... Iran has entered into discussions with Athens on extending on into Greece its pipeline to Turkey -- at a point in time when Iran's other gas-export options look increasingly limited. Years of talks, studies, and high-level visits on a gas...

Supply schemes for South Norway, Poland.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... Just as Norway is filling in the details of a scheme to improve the economic viability of its planned pipeline to Poland by pushing extra volumes into domestic Norwegian markets along the route, a new Polish government is reviewing the project...

Trouble for US LNG terminal near Boston.(Distrigas Corp. wants to increase imports of liquefied natural gas)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... Distrigas would like to boost imports of LNG into Boston, a relatively high-value US market. The mayor of Boston would like Distrigas to go away. Amid this tug-of-war rests the fate of a major source of swing gas supply into the US Northeast....

Shell talking to Exxon on China pipeline.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... Chinese authorities have given Royal Dutch/Shell the green light to hold talks with Exxon Mobil on joining the country's ambitious $18 billion West-to-East gas pipeline scheme. PetroChina also said on Feb. 4 that its feasibility study on...

Market insight: US winter woes. (Insight).(gas market predictions)(Statistical Data Included)
February 6, 2002... The North American gas market is heading into the winter homestretch with brimming inventories, low prices for competing fuels, plentiful hydropower, and a slumping industrial sector (WGI Jan.9,p6). Any hope for a sustained market rebound are...

Europe's national power champions spark controversy. (Current).(E. ON AG's acquisition quest)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... Europe's electricity companies have met head-on the fragmentary forces released by market liberalization. Flush with cash and faced with opening to others of the home turf that generated that war chest, former national monopolies have embarked...

Algeria, Russia lead exporters in attack on EU gas policy. (Horizon).(Second Gas Exporting Countries Forum)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 6, 2002... Algeria got the thing it appeared to want most as host of last weekend's Second Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) -- a mandate to prepare, with help from key ally Russia, a round table later this year to discuss the impact on producers of...

WGI supplement: European end-user prices: (in euro cents/kWh).(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
February 6, 2002... WGI SUPPLEMENT: European End-User Prices: (In Euro Cents/kWh) Gas Prices: * 100,000 cm/yr 50% Load 90% Load Firm Firm Belgium December '01...

European end-user prices: (in US dollars/MMBtu).(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
February 6, 2002... Gas Prices: * 100,000 cm/yr 50% Load 90% Load Firm Firm Belgium December '01 6.21 5.85 November '01 6.18 5.83...

Gazprom agrees to open up.(Gazprom Russian Joint Stock Co.)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... Unlike its predecessors, the new Gazprom management seems to be coming to terms with the idea of sharing the market for Russian gas -- inside and even outside the country -- with independent gas producers. Deputy Prime Minister Viktor...

Indonesian Donggi LNG to Philippines?(liquefied natural gas discovery on Sulawesi)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... A top Indonesian energy official says that the so-called Donggi gas discovery on the island of Sulawesi might hold the potential for LNG exports to the Philippines. BP earlier signed a letter of intent to supply LNG to that country from...

Algeria expands to meet export goals.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 13, 2002... Keen to capture a greater share of the growing European gas market, Algeria last year announced plans to boost exports to 85 billion cubic meters per year (8.2 billion cubic feet per day), from some 60 Bcm/yr in 1999 (WGI Oct.31,p3). ...

Kuwait's gas imports.(Qatar and Exxon Mobil Corp. to supply)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... Kuwait came one step closer to locking in much needed gas imports to fuel power plants and industrial projects late last month, when it signed a protocol and term sheet agreement for the purchase of Qatari gas by pipeline. The two countries and...

Mixed Transco results.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 13, 2002... Britain's national gas pipeline network, Transco, increased throughput by 1.7% last year. But job cuts and more proposed rule changes took some of the gloss off last week's annual results from owner Lattice. Western Europe's biggest gas...

Enterprising Innogy.(marketing alliance with Enterprise PLC)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 13, 2002... An agreement outlined last week by UK firms Enterprise and Innogy for a gas market alliance may serve upstream producer Enterprise's strategy for resisting predators such as Italy's ENI. And it should also strengthen Innogy's role in European...

Shell in South Africa.(importing Namibian gas)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... This week's signing by Royal Dutch/Shell and South Africa's Energy Ministry of a letter of intent to cooperate on developing South Africa's domestic gas industry marks significant progress in efforts to bring Namibian gas to South Africa. ...

BG's Bolivian surplus.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... UK-based BG said that its Los Suris-5 development well in Bolivia enhances its ability to make long-term supply commitments to the "growing Brazilian market," as it announced an average flow rate of 58 million cubic feet per day from the well,...

Norsk Hydro trades.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 13, 2002... For the first time, Norsk Hydro last year sold more of other companies' gas than it did of its own, on the back of a big expansion in its Brussels-based energy trading arm. At a Feb. 12 annual results briefing in London, Chief Executive...

LNG work goes on in the Americas.(liquified natural gas trade)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... Activity in the US-related LNG sector may have cooled off a bit from the fever pitch of last year, but projects on both the supply and delivery sides are moving ahead (WGI Jan.30,p3). Most recently, Hunt Oil, through its subsidiary Camisea...

Market insight: Japanese price dip. (Insight).(Industry Overview)(Statistical Data Included)
February 13, 2002... After running above year-earlier levels in each of the first 11 months of 2001, unweighted average import prices to Japan fell in December by 11% year-on-year, driven down by declines in the crude oil prices to which the LNG is indexed. ...

"Enronitis" afflicts US energy merchants differently. (Current).(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... The military calls it "collateral damage" -- the harm caused unintentionally by, for example, bombs that miss their targets or debris blown into adjacent areas. Wall Street has its own name for collateral damage these days. It's "Enronitis."...

Bracing for the worst in North American gas markets. (Horizon).(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... A year ago analysts saw no end in sight to soaring North American gas prices. Now they see no end in sight to a protracted market slump. Nearly every market indicator points downward, the prime one being an enormous 1 trillion cubic foot...

Sonatrach's US comeback.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... Algerian state Sonatrach is negotiating LNG sales to El Paso and three other potential US buyers, for delivery starting in 2004-05, Sonatrach Vice President for Sales Ali Hached told WGI last week. A spokesman for El Paso declined to comment,...

UBSWenergy faces tough comeback fight.(commodity trading website of UBS Warburg)(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... After being closed for more than two months, EnronOnline is back, under the new rubric UBSWenergy.com. And the aspect of the system that most perturbed many in the industry -- its bilateral trade relationship -- is unchanged, a fact that could...

Progress at NLNG, Hess likely to buy.(Nigeria LNG Ltd. seeks buyers, Amerada Hess interested; NLNG Plus plans; Bergesen d.y. A.S.A contract)(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... Nigeria LNG is scrambling to line up buyers in the US, Spain, and Italy to replace collapsed US energy trader Enron, ahead of a planned investment decision at the end of this month on its two-train, 11 billion cubic meter (8 million ton) per...

European gas trade active after Enron.(IntercontinentalExchange Inc.)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 20, 2002... Europe's over-the-counter gas brokers and exchanges say that business is booming, barely three months after the demise of EnronOnline. But they're also warning new entrants against entering what they concede is already a crowded market -- even...

BG runs up against resistance in India.(BG Group PLC's Pipavav LNG project)(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... The UK-based BG Group has virtually scrapped its Pipavav LNG project in India's western state of Gujurat, unless or until if finds buyers for the gas and negotiates tax incentives with the government (WGI Sep.5,p4). The pullback comes...

Egypt's regional pipe.(Egyptian General Petroleum Corp. engineering affiliate to build Al Sharq Gas Co. pipeline)(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... Egypt's Al Sharq Gas Co., set up to build a $200 million gas export line from Al Arish in Egypt to Aqaba in Jordan, has selected the engineering affiliate of state Egyptian General Petroleum Corp. (EGPC) to build the 263 kilometer line. ...

Tiga buyer, of sorts.(Tokyo Gas Company Ltd., Osaka Gas Company Ltd. and Toho Gas Company Ltd. buy MLNG Tiga gas)(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... Malaysian state Petronas said Tuesday that it had secured buyers for part of the output from MLNG Tiga, the 6.8 million ton per year, two-train expansion of Malaysia's Bintulu liquefaction complex in the northern Borneo state of Sarawak. ...

Spanish gas tariffs.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... Spain's gas market moved a step closer to liberalization and lower prices this week with the introduction of a new retail tariff structure that should, according to the Economics Ministry, reduce residential bills by 5%-6% and bills for large...

UK energy review.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... The first review in two decades of UK energy policy recommends the government should largely maintain its current hands-off approach to the energy sector. The one highlight was a recommendation that the government double its renewable energy...

Alaska gas subsidy.(British Petroleum Company PLC)(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... If the US wants to pipe Alaskan gas to the lower 48 states, the government will have to subsidize the multi-billion project, as the pipeline is too risky for BP to undertake as things now stand, officials of the UK supermajor told analysts in...

Harmonious Madrid.(fifth Madrid Forum)(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... The fifth Madrid Forum, a biannual meeting on European network issues, took place in relative peace and harmony, despite the threatening noises from the European Commission that preceded it -- not to mention the feud further north between...

The New Power Markets.(energy industry vertical structure disappearing)(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... The era when the world's power sector was populated by vertically integrated monopolies, often state-owned or heavily regulated, is fast drawing to a close. Around the globe, this business model is being progressively abandoned. The US set...

Clarification.(prices associated with proposed gas pipeline from Iran to India)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 20, 2002... WGI reported last week that Paul Samson, vice president of BHP Billiton Petroleum in Iran, had said at a conference in India that gas could be delivered from Iran to India via a proposed pipeline through Pakistan for a delivered cost at New...

Market insight: no harmony at hub. (Insight).(Industry Overview)(Statistical Data Included)
February 20, 2002... Rivalries continue to intensify over who should develop a new spot trading hub on the Dutch-German border, threatening to delay, if not derail, the entire effort (WGI Jan.23,p6). German network operators Ruhrgas and BEB and Norwegian...

Bush emissions program favors already invigorated US coal. (Current).(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... Coal-fired power in the US scored a big victory with the "Kyoto alternative" put forward by President George Bush last week. Although the program would target reductions of around 70% in sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx), and mercury...

Italian energy markets may be set to open up at last. (Horizon).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 20, 2002... While Rome has been among the more energetic promoters of gas and power trading in the European Union, the dominance of Enel on the power side and ENI on the gas side has inhibited progress, leaving Italian retail energy prices among the...

A new world.(deregulation of utilities)(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... Power markets across the world are being reshaped as formerly isolated public utilities are privatized and their markets opened to competition. This has opened the doors to a wealth of investment opportunities for the ambitious new breed of...

The balance of power.(European energy sector more active than American)(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... US power companies were the early leaders in the emerging international power sector, largely because their home markets were among the first in the world to be liberalized. But their European counterparts now look poised to take the leading...

Russian market beckons.(power sector reform)(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... Russia has started a process of reform that will transform its power sector in the coming few years from an inefficient public service into a profit making industrial sector. The creation of a new commercial market structure will also provide...

Asia opening powers ahead.(energy industry)(Brief Article)(Industry Overview)(Statistical Data Included)
February 20, 2002... Asia's gradually opening power markets will provide numerous opportunities for ambitious international power companies. Across the region, countries are at different stages of liberalization, but the trend is clear; deregulation will change the...

US reappraisal after Enron.(energy industry)(Brief Article)(Industry Overview)
February 20, 2002... The face of the US power market -- both wholesale and retail -- has been changing rapidly in the wake of the summer 2000 California energy crisis, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the collapse of trading giant Enron, and the resulting questions...

Vigorous European power trading.(European Energy Exchange )(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... Liberalization has created a new pan-European power market with an abundance of trading opportunities. Several electronic exchanges have been established across the continent providing new pricing hubs that could conceivably allow power to be...

BP takes Adgas LNG for Spain.(BP to buy liquefied natural gas from Adgas)(Brief Article)
February 27, 2002... BP has inked a three-year deal to buy up to 750,000 tons per year of LNG from Abu Dhabi's Adgas, starting this year, sources at Adgas and BP confirm. The LNG is sold f.o.b. Abu Dhabi, and BP plans to use it to supply its downstream outlets in...

Alaska gas pipeline prospects fade.(Brief Article)
February 27, 2002... Unless the US federal government wants to foot part of the bill, it looks increasingly as if a gas pipeline will not get built from Alaska to the lower 48 states any time soon -- and with benchmark gas prices hovering around $2.50 per million...

No ships dock at Lake Charles, Elba.(U.S. LNG imports)(Brief Article)
February 27, 2002... The US may beckon LNG imports in the future, but for now, the market is dead money. in the fourth quarter of last year, only one spot cargo, from Atlantic LNG in Trinidad, was taken into the US, and that was essentially dumped to get buyer...

Egyptian LNG plans advance, BP recedes.(Brief Article)
February 27, 2002... BP and partner ENI of Italy have dropped back in the race to develop an Egyptian LNG export project, as rivals Union Fenosa of Spain and UK-based BG with Italy's Edison advance. Speaking at a conference on Mediterranean gas in Cairo this...

El Paso maintains enthusiasm for LNG.(Brief Article)
February 27, 2002... Depressed prices may have stifled El Paso's enthusiasm for broadband and other telecommunications, but not so LNG. The company still believes that LNG operations could be generating $1 billion annually in operating profit by the middle of the...

US production falling -- but not very fast.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 27, 2002... A broad consensus has emerged among US gas analysts that domestic production will fall this year. But fourth-quarter data show only a marginal decline in 2001, and few expect to see a notable dent in deliverability until autumn, at the...

Mexico fiddles price to industrial users.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 27, 2002... With little fanfare and some complexity, the Mexican Energy Ministry has struck a deal with large industrial gas users to adjust a fixed price that was designed to protect users from the high end of the global price spectrum and make the low...

Auditing Gazprom.(PricewaterhouseCoopers)(Brief Article)
February 27, 2002... The scandal surrounding the auditing of US Enron's accounts by Arthur Andersen led Russia's Audit Chamber to conduct a special review of the way that Gazprom's financial transactions have been scrutinized by its official auditor,...

BG to drill off Spain.(BG Group)(Brief Article)
February 27, 2002... Few other than Repsol-YPF have shown any interest in exploring for gas off Spain, and domestic production covers less than 1% of the country's 18.4 billion cubic meters per year (1.8 billion cubic feet per day) of consumption (WGI Jan.2,p2)....

Gasunie moves ahead quickly on hub.(gas firm)(Brief Article)
February 27, 2002... Dutch Gasunie has accelerated plans to operate a new gas hub on the Dutch-German border, in direct competition with a rival Ruhrgas-BEB-Statoil scheme that may not be up and running until the second half of this year (WGI Feb.20,p6). ...

Shell's Qatari GTLs.(Qatar and Royal Dutch/Shell to develop gas-to-liquids facility)(Brief Article)
February 27, 2002... Qatar is pushing ahead with plans to become a gas-to-liquids (GTL) powerhouse, evidenced by last week's signing of a statement of intent with Royal Dutch/Shell to study developing a GTL facility capable of producing between 75,000 and 110,000...

Lebanon gas advance.(tender issued for gas pipeline)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 27, 2002... Lebanon has issued a tender for the design, construction, and operation of a 34-kilometer gas pipeline running from the Syrian border to the Deir Ammar/Beddawi power station near Tripoli. Bids are due in April, and construction is expected to...

Innogy in play.(firms look to buy energy company)(Brief Article)
February 27, 2002... Europe's energy-company merger frenzy shows no sign of abating. The first shots may have been fired in a bidding war for Innogy, the UK's biggest generator and second-largest gas supplier after Centrica. Innogy said that it had received...

Europe's changing end-user gas and power price scene.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 27, 2002... WGI has been publishing comparisons of European end-user gas and electricity prices provided by UK-based Energy Advice since 1993. At that time, apart from Britain, where competition was just starting, the European states still had national or...

WGI supplement: European End-User Prices.(World Gas Intelligence)(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
February 27, 2002... WGI SUPPLEMENT: European End-User Prices (In Euro Cents/kWh) Gas Prices: * 100,000 cm/yr 1 Million cm/yr Typical High Low Typical High Low Belgium ...

Market insight: US LNG winners, losers. (Insight).(liquefied natural gas)(Statistical Data Included)
February 27, 2002... The US market gave LNG spot sellers and buyers a rough ride last year, as gas prices went from above $10 per million Btu to below $2.50/MMBtu (p4). A closer look at LNG import data for 2001 from the US Department of Energy (DOE) provides some...

Wind leads big renewable power surge in Europe. (Current).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 27, 2002... Renewable energy looks set to get a very big a boost in the European Union over the next decade, as member states try to match their commitment to the Kyoto Climate Change Treaty with effective implementation measures. Solar, biomass, and even...

Japan gets first of many likely concessions on LNG terms. (Horizon).(liquefied natural gas)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 27, 2002... Japan may not provide for much longer the same high-priced, stable haven that it has in earlier years for gas exporters beset by free-marketers in Europe and the US (WGI Feb.6,p8). Japan's nearly 55 million tons per year in LNG imports dwarf...