World Gas Intelligence articles from July 2004

World Gas Intelligence archives from July 2004

Kogas privatization off.
July 7, 2004... South Korea is scrapping plans to privatize Korea Gas Corp. (Kogas) following sustained opposition from unions and lawmakers, sources at the firm tell WGI. This follows a recent government suspension of the planned breakup of Korea Electric...

More Euro tinge to QP, Exxon LNG plan.
July 7, 2004... After months of negotiation, state Qatar Petroleum (QP) and Exxon Mobil last week announced a long-term deal to book LNG import capacity at the Fluxys-owned LNG import terminal at Zeebrugge for volumes from their planned Train 5 of the RasGas-2...

Oman's Qalhat sells out--and then some.
July 7, 2004... Japan's Itochu, Osaka Gas and Mitsubishi Corp. confirmed last week that they had signed long-term contracts for a combined 2.3 million tons per year of output from Oman's third LNG train (WGI Mar.17,p6). The train, known as Qalhat LNG, will...

BP gets big slice of LNG action in Egypt.
July 7, 2004... BP this week signed two agreements--on gas supply and LNG sales--with state Egyptian General Petroleum Corp. (EGPC) and Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Co. (Egas) that effectively give the UK company the position it has long sought as an...

Sunrise LNG wanes, as NW shelf expands.
July 7, 2004... Even as Australia's North West Shelf LNG was putting first gas through its fourth train last week, the competing Greater Sunrise LNG project with more than 10 trillion cubic feet (285 billion cubic meters) of reserves in the adjoining waters of...

Kudu gas-to-power.
July 7, 2004... UK-Irish explorer Tullow has given its key backing to the Kudu gas project offshore Namibia, the second big project in regional terms aimed in part at least at supplying energy from neighboring states to South Africa. Tullow's newly...

Camisea gas in Lima.
July 7, 2004... First gas from the Camisea fields in Peru's Amazon Basin reached the country's capital city Lima on Jun. 24, more than a month ahead of schedule. Gas is piped over the Andes for power generation and industrial use in Lima, while liquids will be...

Dutch unbundling.
July 7, 2004... Dutch gas group Gasunie spun off its pipeline subsidiary Gas Transport Services (GTS) as a separate legal entity on Jul. 2. Dutch law to implement the second European Union Gas Directive, ratified in the national parliament in late June and...

India, Iran turn to pricing in LNG talks.
July 7, 2004... Prices continue to spiral down in Asian long-term LNG markets. Indian state importing consortium Petronet LNG has already gotten would-be LNG entrant Iran to agree to slice another 12% off the record-low $2.53 per million Btu f.o.b. Mideast...

Market insight: US cool--so far.(Insight)
July 7, 2004... Unusually mild weather for early July has left North American gas markets in a holding pattern. But the summer outlook is still widely bullish, with traders merely awaiting some indication of broad-based hot weather to drive demand and prices...

Eastern, Central European power reform edges forward.(Current)
July 7, 2004... The privatization of Central and Eastern European power companies continues to gather pace. Reform efforts have run into barriers in some countries, but these obstacles are generally not seen as insurmountable (WGI Jun.18'03,p7). And the...

Will LNG terminal expansion trump new-builds in Europe?(Horizon)
July 7, 2004... Two recent developments illustrate how much easier and cheaper it is to expand existing LNG import complexes in Europe than it is to build new ones from scratch--and in the process highlight doubts that all proposed new terminals along the...

Italian market opening.
July 14, 2004... Italy's Antitrust Authority has given Eni until October to launch the country's first gas release program--a move aimed at finally injecting genuine competition into this potentially crucial link in both the trans-Atlantic LNG arbitrage and...

US LNG imports up again last quarter.
July 14, 2004... US LNG imports were up in the second quarter 26% from same period last year and 6.2% from the first quarter, despite some disruption in supply from Trinidad. A decline of almost 9% in imports from Trinidad from first-quarter levels, to 1.235...

Indonesia, China in Murky supply talks.
July 14, 2004... Indonesia has recently signed a number of preliminary agreements to supply LNG to previously little known companies operating in northeastern China. Indonesian officials tell WGI that memoranda of understanding with Sinocheers, First China...

Zeebrugge booked, Tractebel bullish.
July 14, 2004... Belgium's Zeebrugge LNG import terminal, due to double in size in 2007, is now fully booked in its expanded form through 2027. Tractebel Global LNG--like Belgian gas incumbent Distrigas a part of the Suez group--on Jul. 8 announced that it...

Gazprom adds strategic links into Europe.
July 14, 2004... If you can't fight it, join it, seems to be Gazprom's current approach to the now clearly inevitable liberalization of European gas markets. The Russian gas giant, with the backing of the government in Moscow, is busily expanding its strategic...

Conoco at Long Beach.
July 14, 2004... Supplying its own refineries and obtaining associated natural gas liquids are factors motivating ConocoPhillips' decision to farm into Mitsubishi Corp.'s planned $400 million Long Beach, California, LNG receiving terminal, as much or more than...

Firm Medgaz sale.
July 14, 2004... Spain's second biggest gas marketer, Iberdrola, has signed the first firm contract to purchase Algerian gas via the planned 220 kilometer Medgaz pipeline that will link Algeria directly to Spain, with initial capacity of an expected 10 billion...

Qatari GTL progress.
July 14, 2004... Qatar last week took a big step toward its goal of obtaining 400.000 barrels per day of gas-to-liquids capacity by 2010-12 when Royal Dutch/Shell and state Qatar Petroleum (QP) signed a development and production sharing agreement setting out...

Norway's backup link to UK market.
July 14, 2004... Statoil and Norway's other gas producers are developing a low-cost, but presumably highly effective backup to insure reliable delivery of gas under contracts for supply that is to come to the UK in normal times from the giant Ormen Lange...

Market insight: dizzy Asian LNG heights.(Insight)
July 14, 2004... Soaring crude oil prices over the last few months have cast in a starkly negative light the effects of oil-market linkage on the amount Japanese and South Korean utilities pay for LNG--and will likely add to pressure from these countries on...

Why US spark spreads may head higher soon, not later.(Current)
July 14, 2004... This week's indictment of former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay on 11 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud and making false and misleading statements to employees and banks was an interesting diversion. But neither it nor anything...

More production coming from US rockies, headed East.(Horizon)
July 14, 2004... A frantic spate of mergers and acquisitions involving properties in the US Midcontinent, Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin and Rocky Mountain regions of both countries could portend a sharp boost in deliverability from these gas-producing...

Venezuela's latest LNG slip.
July 21, 2004... Amid a major push for upstream gas development, downstream delays are undermining Venezuela's ambitions to become a major international gas supplier. The estimated $2.7 billion Mariscal Sucre LNG project, slated for completion in 2007, is...

Taiwan may seek spot LNG this winter.
July 21, 2004... Taiwan's Chinese Petroleum Corp. (CPC) may have to resort to spot purchases of up to 20 cargoes of LNG this autumn and winter to cover increasing demand at home from new independent power projects coming online this year--demand that key...

How Panama Canal might open to LNG.
July 21, 2004... Some 5% of world trade passes through the Panama Canal, but so far none of it has been LNG. That may soon change, as plans for widening the canal--coupled with new gas export projects--could allow LNG tankers to join the 14,000 ships per year...

Indonesia struggles to halt investment plunge.
July 21, 2004... Indonesia's once trend-setting gas sector is on the ropes. Approvals for direct foreign investment in the country plunged 40% in the first five months of 2004 to $2.5 billion, from $4.2 billion a year earlier, due to political and regulatory...

Bolivian LNG exports still face uphill path.
July 21, 2004... When everything seemed lost for the Pacific LNG project to export gas from Bolivia to Baja California or the northwest mainland of Mexico, a frail light again appeared at the end of the tunnel. Bolivians' vote Sunday in favor of exporting...

Turkey backtracking on gas liberalization.
July 21, 2004... The Turkish energy ministry last month tried to engineer "a major step back" from liberalization targets set out in the country's 2001 gas law, the Istanbul-based IBS warned in its June edition of Energy Line. The ministry proposed a new draft...

Oman Power project.
July 21, 2004... A consortium led by Belgium's Tractebel, a division of French Suez, has been selected to build, own and operate an independent water and power project (IWPP) in Oman's northern port of Sohar. The $500 million plant will be designed to...

Market insight: margins Italian-style.(Insight)
July 21, 2004... The gap between Italy's gas import prices and the cost to end-users is one of--if not the--largest in any western European country. Gas at the Italian border recently increased to an estimated $4 per million Btu average (see table). Yet...

Coal gas--and liquids--coming of age in US, China.(Current)
July 21, 2004... Natural gas was supposed to be the fuel of choice for the future of North American--if not global--power generation for the foreseeable future. Like so many Enron-promoted ideas, however, this hasn't worked out according to plan. The surge in...

Exxon's Harry Longwell talks about operations in Qatar.(Horizon)
July 21, 2004... Exxon Mobil Executive Vice President Harry Longwell talked to Energy Intelligence Houston Bureau Chief Barbara Shook last week about the huge company's huge plans for developing the huge gas resources of tiny Qatar. He had just returned to the...

Deconstructing NLNG supply.
July 28, 2004... For all its talk about cutting gas flaring, Nigeria LNG (NLNG) seems poised to use plenty of non-associated gas for the foreseeable future as it plans for up to three more trains to boost capacity to over 20 million tons per year (WGI...

Trinidad state seeks bigger LNG role.
July 28, 2004... The government of Trinidad and Tobago is flexing its gas muscles. In order to strengthen its strategic position in the lucrative LNG market, the tiny Caribbean country is hatching plans for some radical changes in the way it has done business...

Singapore eyes LNG hub trading role.
July 28, 2004... Singapore is studying prospects for turning itself into an LNG trading hub that would mirror its substantial role in the region's oil products and petrochemical trade. With blackouts multiplying as pipeline gas from Indonesia becomes less...

Dutch small fields policy under attack.
July 28, 2004... The Dutch government is facing mounting--but often conflicting--economic and political demands for changes in its much-revered small-fields policy, one of the pillars of national energy policy meant to stimulate output from smaller gas fields...

Spain's GN lays out hefty Italian strategy.
July 28, 2004... Promptly after winning a long-running battle last week to obtain capacity at Italy's sole LNG import terminal at Panigaglia, Spain's leading gas marketer Gas Natural (GN) announced that this would be too little to underpin its longer-term...

In Salah gas flows, mainly to Italy.
July 28, 2004... BP and Statoil last week began selling gas from their In Salah Gas development to project partner Algerian stare Sonatrach. The dry-gas field began producing on Jul. 18 and promises to boost Algerian gas exports by about 15%. Timing of the...

Jamaica, Trinidad talks.
July 28, 2004... Jamaica is still in talks to buy LNG from the government of Trinidad and Tobago, according to Raymond Wright, group director of the Petroleum Corp. of Jamaica. The Caribbean island hopes to use the gas to cut its fuel costs, even as it expands...

Danish-Dutch flows.
July 28, 2004... Europe's newest gas trade flow--offshore Denmark into the Netherlands--began last week through a new 100 kilometer, 26 inch diameter subsea pipe running from Denmark's Tyra West offshore platform to the Dutch F3-FB platform. From there gas...

Gas for East Africa.
July 28, 2004... East Africa's first gas-fired power plant began commercial operations last week in the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam. UK emerging markets generator Globeleq's $260 million Songas project consists of a gas processing plant at Songo Songo...

RasGas finds big path into Florida market.
July 28, 2004... Exxon Mobil has found an alternative to Alabama as an entry point into the fast-growing US Southeast gas market--the Bahamas--while pursuing its stated policy of lining up in advance large credit-worthy customers for its LNG (WGI Jan.21,p8)....

Market insight: LNG tight, outside US.(Insight)
July 28, 2004... With US gas prices hovering around $6 per million Btu and the outlook persistently bullish, it's small wonder that the Lake Charles, Louisiana, LNG receiving terminal is buzzing with activity--even in a generally tight global LNG market....

Electricity demand rising sharply almost everywhere.(Current)
July 28, 2004... Fueled by economic growth, electricity demand is soaring virtually worldwide--straining the ability of suppliers of not just gas, but coal and oil as well, to meet requirements, and pushing up prices for virtually all fuels. The sharpest...

Nigeria LNG continues to lag in use of associated gas.(Horizon)
July 28, 2004... Royal Dutch/Shell and Total both look set to continue supplying large quantities of non-associated gas to Nigeria LNG for the next couple of years, contrary to earlier expectations for the supposedly environmentally oriented project. Shell's...