World Gas Intelligence articles from January 2004

World Gas Intelligence archives from January 2004

Everett terminal for sale?
January 7, 2004... There is not actually a "For Sale" sign posted out front, but industry insiders report receiving hints that French Suez may be looking to sell all or part of its Everett, Massachusetts, US LNG receiving terminal as part of a program of...

Gazprom profits jump, Azeri sale agreed.
January 7, 2004... Russia's once chronically cash-strapped Gazprom expects a 71% rise in its 2003 net profit in ruble terms, driven by a lighter tax burden, stronger domestic prices, higher sales to former Soviet republics, and firmer oil-indexed prices on...

Gasunie fails to offset Dutch sales slide.
January 7, 2004... Dutch Gasunie's overall sales volumes slipped in 2003 for the second year running. Exports continued to rise, but not quite last enough to compensate for its reduced sales in the domestic Dutch market. Preliminary 2003 results show total...

Indonesia's forward, backward LNG steps.
January 7, 2004... Indonesia's LNG export program for new and existing projects continues to be racked with problems, despite a promising--but non-binding--recent heads of agreement for the sale of 3.7 million tons per year (500 million cubic feet per day) from...

Musical chairs for US Gulf LNG capacity.
January 7, 2004... Prospective US Gulf Coast LNG receiving capacity that would be open for third-party use diminished with the recent announcement that ConocoPhillips secured 1 billion cubic feet per day (7.55 million tons per year) of capacity in the proposed...

Inching toward South American grid.
January 7, 2004... South America's Southern Cone took a step closer to integrating its natural gas networks with a deal last month to pipe additional gas from Bolivia to Argentina. The presidents of Bolivia and Argentina agreed to improve the existing gas...

Angling to expand Quangdong LNG.
January 7, 2004... While sources on both the importing and exporting sides are now openly talking about a second increase to 4 million tons per year in Phase 1 import volumes to China's initial LNG project, at Guangdong (Shenzhen), several hurdles remain to be...

Greece, Turkey deal.
January 7, 2004... Greece last month signed a final agreement to purchase 750 million cubic meters per year (72.5 million cubic feet per day) of Azerbaijani gas from Turkey, building on a March 2002 memorandum of understanding between Athens and Ankara to build a...

Oman pipes progress.
January 7, 2004... State Oman Gas Co. this week belatedly opened its 350 kilometer gas pipeline from fields around Fahud to Sohar on the border with the UAE. The line was completed about a year ago, but operation was held up due to delays in developing downstream...

Market insight: cold US sees hot prices.(Insight)
January 7, 2004... North American gas markets have endured a remarkably volatile early winter, and more price spikes appear in store amid forecasts for a frigid January--a potential boon for LNG importer netbacks. Henry Hub gas futures prices on the New York...

Saudi Arabia jumps on independent power bandwagon.(Current)
January 7, 2004... Recent agreements by state Saudi Aramco under which UK merchant generator International Power is to develop, own and operate some 1,074 megawatts of gas-fired cogeneration capacity in eastern Saudi Arabia represent a pioneering use of a...

Resumed strong gas growth forecast in UK, Germany.(Horizon)
January 7, 2004... Despite an ongoing hiatus in demand growth in Western Europe's two largest gas markets that shows no immediate sign of ending, the UK and Germany are both forecast by industry players to see renewed brisk expansion in gas use later this decade....

India enters LNG era.
January 14, 2004... India's state-controlled importing consortium Petronet LNG is already hatching plans to double capacity at its new 5 million ton per year (6.85 million cubic meter) receiving terminal in Dahej in Gujarat, even as it prepares to receive the...

US LNG import levels double in 2003.
January 14, 2004... Easing some concerns that the US might remain the world's LNG customer of last resort for some time longer, LNG imports to US terminals more than doubled in 2003, WGI estimates show. While fourth-quarter volumes took a hit as a result of winter...

Belarus joins Russia's open-access battle.
January 14, 2004... Belarus is emerging as an important battle ground in the struggle by Gazprom to consolidate its position in former Soviet markets and oust Russia-based, US-registered gas trader and producer Itera (WGI Nov. 12, p2). The outcome may be a good...

Shell puts spotlight on gas reserve booking.
January 14, 2004... Royal Dutch/Shell's decision to remove reserves from its Gorgon LNG project in Australia from its proved category--the largest single project revision in the company's bombshell "reclassification" last week of 3.9 billion barrels of oil...

Belgian LNG terminal likely to expand.
January 14, 2004... French Suez-controlled Fluxys, owner of Belgium's LNG terminal at Zeebrugge, hopes to sign firm agreements with up to six companies as early as next month for capacity at the terminal after 2006. The results will help determine whether it...

Greek sale in limbo.
January 14, 2004... The Greek government's plan to sell off a 35% stake in national gas company Depa could be in limbo for months. Spain's Gas Natural (GN) was the only company to present a binding bid for the Depa stake in September, widely reported as 250...

French set rules for more competition.
January 14, 2004... This year is poised to see substantial moves in the previously slow deregulation process that has left the French gas market at the bottom of the European Union league tables in terms of percentage of market open to choice (see table below)....

Market insight: Asian spot pricing.(Insight)
January 14, 2004... If Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) is paying above term prices for its spot and swapped LNG cargoes, it is not showing up in official price data. Japan's LNG import price averaged $4.73 per million Btu in the first 11 months of last year, 27...

Electronic power trading still the buzz in US, Europe.(Current)
January 14, 2004... Far from dying with Enron, its leading early proponent, online power trading continues to solidify its role on either side of the Atlantic--but with some notable differences. In Europe, where e-trading started as the turf of a plethora of...

Hub map changes.(Current)
January 14, 2004... Electricity prices from France's Powernext exchange are now included in WGI's regular map of European gas and power hub prices. France, situated at the electricity crossroads of Europe, is the region's leading power exporter. With its...

US energy merchants chart no single course to recovery.(Horizon)
January 14, 2004... In the days when Enron reigned as master of the merchant energy universe, the common mantra among its North American competitors was "We're doing the same things as Enron, only better." Today, the survivors of the US energy merchant...

Algerian LNG blast.
January 21, 2004... Algerian state Sonatrach quickly sought to reassure customers that it will "minimize the impact on LNG liftings" of the explosion and fire that gutted three of the six trains and killed more than 25 people at its Skikda LNG complex in northeast...

RasGas, Qatargas set for spot sales surge.
January 21, 2004... Despite Algeria's tragic accident, global spot and medium-term LNG markets should be reasonably well supplied for the next few years, as Qatar's RasGas-2 project readies its Trains 3 and 4, of 4.7 million tons per year capacity each, for...

MLNG Tiga seeks spot, term buyers.
January 21, 2004... Despite recent setbacks in Malaysia's expansion of LNG facilities--topped by an accident last year at Tiga Train 1--state Petronas is moving ahead boldly with efforts to sell spot cargoes into the US and Europe, and pave the way for expansion...

US markets ease after winter surge.
January 21, 2004... The worst of the bullish winter surge in the North American market is probably over, and a bearish wend now looks to be firmly in place for the rest of the winter. The prospective loss of Algerian supply and heightened European competition...

PetroChina firms up Pipeline Gas sales.
January 21, 2004... State-controlled PetroChina says that it has firmed up 20 take-or-pay contracts to supply gas from the West-to-East Pipeline to users in Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai provinces, implying substantial progress in heretofore slow...

Romanian auction.
January 21, 2004... Five European gas firms have qualified to bid for the controlling stake in Romanian gas distributors Distrigaz Nord and Distrigaz Sud, the country's economy ministry said on Monday. Russia's Gazprom, Italy's Enel, German E.On's Ruhrgas unit,...

Dutch power links.
January 21, 2004... Dutch power grid operator TenneT and Norwegian state Statnett have revived a proposal to construct a high-voltage cable to allow power to be traded between the Netherlands and Norway. TenneT and Statnett are keen to complete an underlying...

Gaza tries Egypt gas.
January 21, 2004... The Palestinian Authority has signed a memorandum of understanding to purchase 820,000 cubic feet per day (300 million cubic feet per year) of gas from Egypt, according to Azzam Al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian Energy Authority. A final deal...

Pemex storage solution.
January 21, 2004... Mexican gas imports and production are set to become much more flexible, with a memorandum of understanding signed by state Pemex for Tidelands Oil & Gas of Texas to construct and operate a gas storage facility in a depleted gas field near...

Saudis hint at gas export possibility.
January 21, 2004... Oil Minister Ali Naimi has hinted that Saudi Arabia is rethinking its policy of shunning gas exports, in an apparent recognition of the fuel's growing importance to international energy markets. In a speech at the inauguration of the Haradb gas...

Market insight: Norway's soaring output.(Insight)
January 21, 2004... Norway's marketable gas output in 2003 reached 73 billion cubic meters (7.06 billion cubic feet per day), up 10% or 7.4 Bcm from the previous year, according to the country's Petroleum Directorate (NPD)--which now expects production to increase...

Enel, EdF face hurdles in path to strategic alliance.(Current)
January 21, 2004... Ongoing talks about a strategic alliance between state Electricite de France (EdF) and Italy's huge state-controlled power producer Enel, aimed at giving the two companies easier access to one another's markets, could reconfigure Southwestern...

Exxon describes its expansive LNG marketing strategy.(Horizon)
January 21, 2004... The hesitance and uncertainty often detected in Exxon's approach to LNG marketing in the aftermath of its 1999 takeover of strong LNG contender Mobil is a thing of the past. Not only is the company taking a lead in the development of well over...

Sonatrach manages, just.
January 28, 2004... Algerian state Sonatrach's ability to cover the shortfall from its half-destroyed Skikda LNG plant, either from its larger Arzew LNG complex or increased shipments through pipelines to Spain and Italy, is still open to some doubt. But the...

Moscow wants direct pipe link to Germany.
January 28, 2004... Russia is pressing ahead with its ambitious project to obtain direct access to Western Europe's gas transportation system via a pipeline under the Baltic to Germany. The system would bypass all former Soviet transit countries, which tend to...

Alaska gas pipeline starts to look real.
January 28, 2004... The long period of producer denial about the economic viability of piping 35 trillion cubic feet or more of gas from Alaska's North Slope to the Lower 48 US states has ended. Instead, in theory at least, North Slope producers BP,...

Obstacles remain to Brunei LNG growth.
January 28, 2004... The tiny sultanate of Brunei is not short on ambition. It has announced plans to double its reserves of natural gas, build a new 4 million ton per year sixth liquefaction train by 2010, renegotiate contracts with long-term LNG buyers in Japan...

Brazil advancing on gas reforms--at last.
January 28, 2004... Delays are still possible. But work has begun, and the Brazilian government has set an April deadline for submission to Congress of a new natural gas law for this potentially huge but sparsely realized gas market. Talks began smoothly Jan....

Positioning in India.
January 28, 2004... With shipping sources speculating on the departure of a first, probably commissioning cargo from Qatar headed to India, for expected arrival Jan. 30, jockeying for position is heating up in India's downstream market. Reliance Industries...

Dutch market push.
January 28, 2004... From Jan. 26, Gastransport Services (GTS), the pipeline business of Dutch Gasunie, has provided the 22 or so shippers using its national gas grid with a telephone number that they can use if they wish to buy or sell transmission capacity or...

Energy Bridge ahoy.
January 28, 2004... The ink is barely dry on the US government's go-ahead for the first Energy Bridge floating LNG regasification installation, and already the company's new owner, Excelerate Energy, is preparing a second filing with the Transportation...

UK price spike.
January 28, 2004... Prompt UK wholesale gas prices last Friday soared to a six-year high of around 1 [pounds sterling] per therm ($18.50 per million Btu), as Centrica declared force majeure at its Rough offshore gas storage facility in the North Sea, after a...

Market insight: LNG scramble on.(Insight)
January 28, 2004... Although US prices may be sinking and UK prices soaring, the US still offers all of the world's LNG exporters a more profitable outlet than either the UK-influenced Belgian or solely oil-linked Spanish market (p5). Thanks to high regional...

California's search for renewable energy turns up tides.(Current)
January 28, 2004... The state of California has long been a trailblazer in the use of renewable energy, and this time the state's emerging poster child is all wet, literally. The California Energy Commission has standards in place that would require 20% of...

Gas set for big boost from carbon trading in Europe.(Horizon)
January 28, 2004... Carbon emissions trading is set to hit the big time in Europe on Jan. 1, 2005, with the official startup of the new European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). In fact, carbon trading already looks to be gaining momentum in the run-up to the...