World Gas Intelligence articles from June 2005

World Gas Intelligence archives from June 2005

Qatar's arbitrage ambitions.
June 1, 2005... Qatargas Commercial and Shipping Manager Ali Al-Hammadi told a Qatar finance and investment conference in London last week that "Qatar will be the swing supplier between East and West." Indeed, WGI learns, Qatargas and RasGas have taken pains...

ELNG open, Egypt touts reserve potential.
June 1, 2005... Egypt's second LNG export venture has started up, three months early. A first cargo from the Egyptian LNG (ELNG) project in Idku was lifted Sunday by Malaysian state Petronas' Asean LNG Trading Co. (Altco) affiliate onto Puteri Zamrud Satu, an...

Qatar seeks new math for North Field.
June 1, 2005... Qatari Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah announced last week at a conference in London that Qatar is newly focused on treating its giant North Field--with its estimated 900 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas reserves--"very...

India cuts subsidies amid gas shortage.
June 1, 2005... India's chronic gas shortage has reached such proportions that the government is removing subsidies for most consumers on gas produced in the state sector and raising by 12% to $75 per thousand cubic meters ($2.12 per million Btu) the price for...

Pieces in Mexican LNG terminal puzzle.
June 1, 2005... Pieces of the complex puzzle that is Mexico's LNG terminal landscape are starting to fall into place, with the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) emerging as a key player, while export prospects to the US fall under a cloud (WGI Mar.30,p1)....

Russia's Lukoil looks to gas for growth.
June 1, 2005... Gas output from Russia's largest oil major Lukoil increased by 14.3% last year to 6.5 billion cubic meters (630 million cubic feet per day)--and the real fireworks in the gas division have yet to start. Lukoil plans to raise output...

WGI supplement: European end-user prices.
June 1, 2005... WGI SUPPLEMENT: European End-User Prices (In Eurocents/kWh) Gas Prices: 100,000 cm/yr 1 Million cm/yr Typical High Low Typical High Low Belgium Apr. '05 2.47 2.60...

Omani Dolphin deal.
June 1, 2005... Dolphin is near conclusion of a gas sale and purchase agreement with Oman for just under 300 million cubic feet per day, sources say, despite the expiration earlier this year of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on gas supply between the two...

The globalization of natural gas.
June 1, 2005... The 26th Annual Oil & Money Conference, jointly convened by Energy Intelligence and the International Herald Tribune. will take place on Sep. 20-21, 2005. at the Inter-Continental Hotel in London. The theme for this year's conference is The...

Market insight: end-user price shifts.(Insight)
June 1, 2005... Western European end-user gas prices have not uniformly chased crude oil and product prices upward since early 2005, due to national variations and differing pricing indices and time lags (See WGI supplement, pp 1 and 2). But the outlook is...

Poland moving briskly to bring competition to power market.(Current)
June 1, 2005... Poland's electricity sector is poised for greater competition, with the imminent privatization of key generation assets, the entrance of new international players, and reforms aimed at boosting market liquidity. One such reform that is...

Nigeria's 2008 target to end gas flaring looks elusive.(Horizon)
June 1, 2005... As Nigeria nears its deadline for the elimination of gas flaring, opinions differ on prospects for success. President Olusegun Obasanjo says flaring must stop by 2008, and predictably enough, government officials say that Nigeria is on course....

South Europe LNG trade.
June 8, 2005... Southern Europe's LNG market is evolving, as Spanish leader Gas Natural (GN) steps up ex-storage sales to Italy, while cargoes are being split ex-ship between Spain and Portugal amid signs that Algerian state Sonatrach's hostility to regional...

Egypt spot cargoes hit Atlantic Basin.
June 8, 2005... Thanks to active marketing by Malaysian state Petronas, uncommitted LNG volumes from Egypt's two new projects are quickly finding homes in the Atlantic Basin. A Spanish buyer has bought the first cargo produced at the Egyptian LNG (ELNG)...

Repsol eyeing Peru as bridge to Bolivia?
June 8, 2005... Is Spain's Repsol YPF positioning itself to one day pipe Bolivian gas to Peru? It may seem an odd question in a week in which conflicting views on how that gas should be handled brought Bolivia again to a state of political paralysis. ...

Petronas status at Pars LNG still murky.
June 8, 2005... Weeks after reports of a pending withdrawal first emerged, Malaysian state Petronas still isn't officially confirming its exit from either Iran's Pars LNG project or the upstream Phase 11 gas development that would support it. Whatever the...

Bahamas glitch dulls Florida's LNG shine.
June 8, 2005... Florida, like California, has been considered a prime market for LNG imported into the US. But recent developments suggest that delivering LNG to the peninsula state may be just as challenging as getting it into the US West Coast. The...

Looking far ahead in Equatorial Guinea.
June 8, 2005... Many of the details of the farm-in by Japanese trading powerhouses Mitsui and Marubeni to Marathon's LNG project under construction in Equatorial Guinea are clear. The motivation is less so, with each of the various parties seeming to value the...

LNG primed for European niches.
June 8, 2005... LNG looks set to expand into new niche markets in Europe, with plans afoot for a new regional liquefaction plant in Norway, power plants in Cyprus, and LNG filling stations in the UK. In Norway, regional power suppliers Agder, Lyse and...

Market insight: hibernating US bears.
June 8, 2005... More than a few bears must be blinking twice at the coming North American summer gas market, as oil and natural gas prices in the US soar in tandem despite crushing pressures from the fundamental side in the form of record-high storage and...

Policies friendlier to gas, nuclear in offing in Germany.(CURRENT)
June 8, 2005... A change of direction for German energy policy could come with a change of government this autumn, after Chancellor Gerhard Schroder recently called early general elections following the defeat of his Social Democratic Party (SPD) in its former...

Abu Dhabi gas: more coming for injection, not for LNG.(Horizon)
June 8, 2005... Over the next three to four years, Abu Dhabi is set to spend $4 billion on gas projects aimed among other things at boosting its gas-gathering and processing capacity by more than 25%, to over 5 billion cubic feet per day from 4 Bcf/d now. But...

UK gas price threat.
June 15, 2005... UK industry is steeling itself for prices this winter so extreme that they may force factories to shut for days, weeks or longer in order to cut gas use. Forward gas prices for the six months from October 2005 at the UK's National Balancing...

Gazprom tightens its grip on Russian gas.
June 15, 2005... Gazprom's drive to tighten its grip over Russian gas reserves and export projects continues, both East and West. The company last week outlined plans for securing long-coveted access to reserves in Russia's far eastern Sakhalin Island, through...

BP's Shah Deniz gas marketing puzzle.
June 15, 2005... BP is confident that an appraisal well due to be spudded in its Shah Deniz field in the Caspian Sea off Azerbaijan in the second half of 2006 will result in a 25% increase in the field's current proved gas reserves of 625 billion cubic meters...

Iran, India progress on LNG, pipeline.
June 15, 2005... A visit this week by Indian Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar to Tehran --less than a week before Jun. 17 presidential elections that could lead to significant changes in the country's gas and oil sector--produced substantial progress on...

No customer? No problem for NW shelf.
June 15, 2005... If proof positive were needed of the confidence that the Western majors and big Australian and Japanese players all have in Pacific Basin LNG demand, the final investment decision for a fifth liquefaction train taken by the six equal partners...

Oil prices: how strong for how long?
June 15, 2005... In 2004, WTI reached a historical nominal price peak of $55.67 per barrel. A slight decrease in the subsequent months had many analysts refer to the end of a price bubble, yet in early April 2005. the front-month contract reached another...

EU shifts probe focus.
June 15, 2005... In a busy week in Brussels, the European Commission closed its final probe into Russian gas contracts while signaling that ones involving Algerian state Sonatrach remain very much open, and formally launched a wide-ranging inquiry into whether...

Effects of Cove Point maintenance.
June 15, 2005... Prolonged maintenance under way at Dominion's Cove Point, Maryland terminal may limit send-out from the 1 billion cubic foot per day facility to less than 400 million cubic feet per day on several occasions this summer and early fall, to a...

Market insight: Indonesian efforts.(Insight)
June 15, 2005... The nearly 2.5 million ton per year supply hole that Indonesia is still scrambling to plug represents an expected shortfall of roughly 40 cargoes of 55,000 tons each this year from the Bontang LNG export project alone. Arun is on target to meet...

IPE gas futures.(Insight)
June 15, 2005... IPE GAS FUTURES Contract Jun. 13 Week's Jun. 13 Month pt/therm High/Low $/MMBtu Jul.'05 27.36 28.75/27.31 4.94 Aug. 31.05 32.73/30.90 ...

Nymex gas futures.(Insight)
June 15, 2005... NYMEX GAS FUTURES Contract Jun. 13 Week's Jun. 6 Month $/MMBtu High/Low $/MMBtu Jul. '05 7.260 7.43/6.88 7.122 Aug. 7.309 7.44/6.96 ...

Asian LNG markets.(Insight)
June 15, 2005... ASIAN LNG MARKETS Buyer Seller Prices in $/ton Apr. '05 Mar. '05 Jan. - Apr. Apr. '04 Japan Abu Dhabi 260.58 266.56 265.46 236.27 Alaska 266.80 ...

Power shortages again threaten Southern Europe's summer.(CURRENT)
June 15, 2005... A shortage of hydropower following a particularly arid winter has left southern Europe facing blackout risks this summer if there is a prolonged heat wave. Higher than normal temperatures have already pushed up electricity demand for air...

Coal constraints reinforce bullish outlook for US gas prices.(Horizon)
June 15, 2005... North American gas suppliers and consumers have something of a yin-yang relationship, at least when it comes to the weather. Consumers generally want warm winters and cool summers to keep gas prices down, while suppliers like the bottom-line...

Lake Charles filling up.
June 22, 2005... The BG-controlled Lake Charles, Louisiana, US LNG receiving terminal looks poised for a marked increase in activity late this year, as new Atlantic Basin export capacity comes on stream at a faster pace than corresponding regasification...

Tankers find charters, but rates still low.
June 22, 2005... Egypt's entry into LNG exports has spurred an increase in short-term LNG tanker chartering, although the low rates obtained indicate that the market is not yet out of the doldrums. BP's British Innovator, one of three BP vessels without...

US awakening to climate change.
June 22, 2005... The climate change issue has moved onto center stage in Washington since the Kyoto climate change treaty came into force earlier this year in Europe, Canada and elsewhere (WGI May 25,pl). Policymakers are responding as a growing number of...

Brazil debates new gas transport law.
June 22, 2005... Bolivia's popular revolt against gas exports earlier this month set in motion major change in Brazil--Bolivia's largest gas customer--as it wrestles with the fact that its growing gas consumption depends on such a politically volatile, if...

Old hands still rule Asian LNG roost.
June 22, 2005... Asia's historic mainstays of the global LNG trade aren't about to move their dominant--and steadying--hand off the tiller any time soon, to hear senior executives from the region tell it. Japan and South Korea will remain key base-load buyers...

Oil prices: how strong for how long?
June 22, 2005... In 2004, WTI reached a historical nominal price peak of $55.67 per barrel. A slight decrease in the subsequent months had many analysts refer to the end of a price bubble, yet in early April 2005, the front-month contract reached another...

Eastern US LNG.
June 22, 2005... Excelerate's Northeast Gateway project scored the latest goal in the long-running game to supply LNG to the premium New England US market by lining up a deal with the 1.6 billion cubic foot per day regional Algonquin Gas Transmission system to...

Gazprom's latest reincarnation.
June 22, 2005... After years of corruption and abuse that saw Gazprom's asset-base chipped away and its strategic position weakened, the Russian giant is on the threshold of becoming the most valuable company on any emerging market stock index and, some...

Market insight: BG's Italian setback.(Insight)
June 22, 2005... BG's plans for placing in Italy a good portion of its coming LNG bonanza from Egypt look to be in some disarray (p1). Collapse last week of its long-term contract to sell 3.2 billion cubic meters (2.4 million tons) per year of LNG to Italian...

Gas-heavy Texas power retailers face margin squeeze.(CURRENT)
June 22, 2005... When Texas deregulated its electricity sector in 2002, giving choice of provider to all consumers and businesses, a wave of entrepreneurs jumped in, hoping to cash in on a wide-open multibillion dollar industry. This US state alone now...

BP to unveil major "low carbon" investment in Scotland.(Horizon)
June 22, 2005... BP is expected to go public during next month's G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, on a major environmental showcase project, also in Scotland, to make hydrogen from natural gas for use in an existing commercial-scale power plant and to pipe...

New Gazprom vision.
June 29, 2005... Last week saw Gazprom trumpeting its intention to remodel itself in the image of the Western oil and gas majors, even as it was being pulled back under the umbrella of majority state-ownership (WGI Jun.22,p5). It also provided reminders of the...

Venezuela poised to export via Trinidad.
June 29, 2005... While Venezuela has been taking its time in developing the 38 trillion cubic feet of offshore gas reserves in the acreage it dubbed Deltana Platform, some timid moves have been reported lately toward potential exports of at least small amounts...

Lake Charles access--third-party?
June 29, 2005... With the typical summer upswing in US LNG imports delayed this year, spare capacity abounds at Southern Union's Lake Charles, Louisiana, terminal--a tempting prospect for LNG traders with available spot volumes, it might seem (p6). But...

Another pipe to future hub Singapore.
June 29, 2005... Singapore is setting itself up to be a major consumer of pipeline gas and potentially a regional pipeline, as well as LNG, trading hub (WGI Jul.28,p2). This week, the Keppel construction and shipbuilding conglomerate owned by the...

Gazprom draws LNG bees like honey.
June 29, 2005... The field of contestants to partner with Gazprom in developing the 3.2 trillion cubic meter (113 trillion cubic foot) Shtokmanovskoye gas field in the Arctic Barents Sea is looking increasingly crowded ahead of a promised decision late this...

New Dutch LNG duo.
June 29, 2005... ConocoPhillips and Dutch energy utility Essent have come from nowhere to take the lead in efforts to develop an LNG receiving terminal in the Netherlands or near the Dutch-German border. Conoco and Essent hope to complete a feasibility...

Over-sized Indian find.
June 29, 2005... The Gujarat government Sunday trumpeted a massive gas find of up to 20 trillion cubic feet by the soon-to-be partially privatized Gujarat State Petroleum Corp. (GSPC). It was billed as the country's largest gas find ever--something which...

Greece-Italy pipe.
June 29, 2005... The Italian and Greek governments signed a protocol of intent in Athens last week aimed at giving a supporting shove to the "Interconnector Greece-Italy" subsea pipeline project to link the two countries, first mooted in 2002 and now more...

First LNG coming to UK's grain--really.
June 29, 2005... The first cargo is now expected to arrive at the UK's new LNG imtx3rt terminal at Isle of Grain, near London, on Jul. 3, after loading late Jun. 29 or early Jun. 30 in Algeria onto the Berge Arzew, sources at Sonatrach tell WGI (WGI Jun.8,p6)....

Market insight: US imports slack.(Insight)
June 29, 2005... Strong demand from European consumers continues to delay the onset of the previously dependable summer upswing in US imports of LNG (p2). Electricity prices in Spain have been soaring this year, on the back of a shortage of hydropower, a...

Advanced clean coal technology gains ground in Europe.(CURRENT)
June 29, 2005... Coal could be set for a comeback in Europe's power generation sector thanks to high gas prices--which are generally indexed to oil--as well as security of supply and energy diversity concerns, as the region becomes more dependent on imported...

Oman pushes hard for faster gas development.(Horizon)
June 29, 2005... Oman is in talks with international companies experienced in unlocking tight gas reservoirs about developing gas fields in Block 6, where Royal/Dutch Shell-led Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has been the operator for decades, Omani sources in...