World Gas Intelligence articles from June 2006

World Gas Intelligence archives from June 2006

Chevron's viewpoint.
June 7, 2006... John Gass, president of Chevron Gas, admits to being "disappointed" that Western Australia's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has come out with a recommendation that the state premier reject a proposal to develop Barrow Island as a site...

Spot LNG trade into India booming.
June 7, 2006... Taking advantage of growing acceptance within India of the kind of gas prices seen on the global LNG spot market, Royal Dutch Shell and its partner French Total are in the process of importing three cargoes into their Hazira LNG terminal on...

Words of comfort about Qatari GTL.
June 7, 2006... Qatari officials took the occasion of the official inauguration of the country's first gas to liquids (GTL) plant, the 34,000 barrel per day Oryx facility built by South African Sasol in partnership with state Qatar Petroleum (QP), to provide...

Supply key for no. 2 Guangdong terminal.
June 7, 2006... Although the provincial government of China's booming Guangdong province last month confirmed plans--first mooted last November--for a second LNG terminal, this one to be built in Ganlan port in Zhuhai, also by China National Offshore Oil Corp....

Gazprom's Miller takes the offensive.
June 7, 2006... As rising kingpin in the increasingly tight global gas market, Russia's Gazprom is pulling no punches. At the World Gas Conference in Amsterdam this week, Chief Executive Alexei Miller took on the contentious issues of LNG, gas exports to...

Bolivian talks with Argentina, Brazil stall.
June 7, 2006... Price negotiations between Bolivia and its two main gas customers--Brazil and Argentina--appear to be stalled, and the list of issues on the negotiating table keeps mounting (WGI May31,p8). Bolivia added its 122-year-old grudge against...

Gazprom, neighbors all eye higher prices.
June 7, 2006... The cheap gas that Gazprom decided earlier this decade to buy from Central Asia in order to avoid expensive moves to counter stagnation in domestic Russian output may not be that cheap after all. Gazprom is being pressed by Central Asian...

Market insight: US price debates.(INSIGHT)
June 7, 2006... Bidweek trading in late May that laid the price underpinnings for many of the US baseload gas sales for June proved to be a sluggish and quiet affair. The June contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) rolled off the board at $5.925...

Future for clean coal in Europe may be all in the timing.(Current)
June 7, 2006... Coal is back on Europe's energy agenda. Concerns about energy supply security, coupled with new technologies that promise to slash carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, have prompted a reappraisal of coal's role in the continent's future generation...

Enron shock waves still reverberate in energy markets.(Horizon)
June 7, 2006... Part of the dot.com craze was the concept of asset-light, knowledge-based trading businesses in which anything could become a commodity--a business model that used hard-asset relics of companies with business plans supposedly out of Jurassic...

Bontang analysis.
June 14, 2006... What has gone so wrong at Bontang? Despite East Kalimantan's apparently copious reserves, the international majors operating the once famously lucrative upstream license areas that feed Indonesia's largest liquefaction facility have presided...

Qatargas fixing all three initial trains.
June 14, 2006... The corrosion problems that caused extended closures of the decade-old Qatargas Train 1 beginning last October will require scrub columns to be replaced at all three of the original Qatargas trains, Qatargas Chief Executive Faisal al-Suwaidi...

BG LNG poised for solid growth.
June 14, 2006... Over the past few years, BG has carved out a unique space for itself in the LNG industry. Although high prices have contributed mightily to its success, the UK company's particular network of production trains and receiving capacity has allowed...

Dutch Gasunie inks Gazprom, RWE deals.
June 14, 2006... Dutch state gas grid owner Gasunie signed two key deals on the fringes of last week's World Gas Conference in Amsterdam: One is a proposed swap of pipeline stakes that will give Russia's Gazprom much greater access to the UK market. The other...

Off-grid approach to North American LNG.
June 14, 2006... The ambition of most US LNG terminal developers to date has been to bring in as much LNG as possible through large facilities and feed it directly into premium markets or, failing that, into long-distance pipelines that will transport it to...

Oil and money 2006: the end of cheap oil costs, consequences and opportunities.
June 14, 2006... Sep. 18-19, 2006, at the Hilton on Park Lane in London The 27th Annual Oil and Money conference will explore the costs and opportunities of the end of the era of cheap oil. Key decision makers from the global oil industry will debate such...

Iran pipe looking real.
June 14, 2006... Talk of a gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and perhaps on to India may not be just talk after all. In an apparent effort to demonstrate Iran's seriousness about the project, the National Iranian Gas Co. (NIGC) last week signed a contract with...

Russia takes hard line ahead of G8.
June 14, 2006... Russia is sticking to a hard-line position on Gazprom's right to control gas exports and on other energy issues ahead of the G8 summit that it is to chair in St. Petersburg in mid-July (WGI Jun.7,p4). The US and European Union (EU) had been...

Market insight: Asian buyers keep cool.(Insight)(Industry overview)
June 14, 2006... Asian buyers are not snapping up LNG spot cargoes all that avidly as summer approaches. Although they aren't totally absent from Atlantic Basin markets, either, they are mainly looking beyond summer to the prospect of winter cargoes, market...

Hydropower remains drought stricken in Southern Europe.(CURRENT)
June 14, 2006... As temperatures rise with the arrival of summer in Europe, power demand is expected to creep up in step with the mercury. The reason is growing reliance on air conditioning, a relatively new phenomenon in Europe--which is now one of the...

Qatar dashes many hopes by insisting it's "sold out".(Horizon)
June 14, 2006... The World Gas Conference in Amsterdam last week saw intense debate over the outlook for gas demand and the severity and likely duration of the current tight global LNG supply situation. But nothing brought home the inflexibility of the supply...

Asia's Qatari accommodations.
June 21, 2006... Despite being sold out at least through 2010 on a term basis, Qatar has apparently signaled enough potential flexibility to encourage Japanese and South Korean buyers to draw up plans for better equipping their receiving terminals to accept the...

Gazprom shuffling Shtokman cards.
June 21, 2006... Russia is not only putting off a decision on what partners it will bring in to the massive Shtokman LNG project until after the mid-July G8 summit as an apparent expression of irritation at Washington's recent critical attitude toward its...

FERC US terminal, gas quality moves.
June 21, 2006... Last week the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) made two rulings highly significant for the future of the US LNG industry. First, it approved five receiving terminal projects on the East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, paving the way...

Tokyo Gas says it's handling Bontang cuts.
June 21, 2006... A decline in LNG exports from Indonesia's Bontang LNG facility this year looks set to increase Tokyo Gas' reliance on spot cargoes much less than might be expected in the fiscal year ending March 2007. The reasons are new supply from the 3...

Latin America edging toward $5.50-$6 gas.
June 21, 2006... The end of Latin America's era of cheap natural gas may have a definite date: June 29. That day the presidents of Argentina and Bolivia, Nestor Kirchner and Evo Morales, are slated to ink an accord laying out higher prices for the gas...

4Gas positioning for Rotterdam race.
June 21, 2006... Petroplus spinoff 4Gas is closing in on construction launch at the Liongas LNG terminal near Rotterdam, the second of three Atlantic Basin terminals planned by the company. Liongas has passed an environmental impact assessment by Dutch...

BP in Segas Train 2.
June 21, 2006... BP completed the leveraging of its strong upstream gas position in Egypt into a midstream LNG position with its signing this week of a framework agreement with Italy's Eni, Spain's Union Fenosa Gas--half-owned by Eni--and state Egyptian...

Market insight: fleeting UK discount.(Insight)(Industry overview)
June 21, 2006... Prompt spot gas at the UK National Balancing Point (NBP) plunged to 2006 lows--and to steep discounts to continental prices--when the Interconnector pipe to Belgium was closed in early June for scheduled maintenance, trapping North Sea gas...

Russia's plodding power reform process scores points.(CURRENT)
June 21, 2006... The slow restructuring of Russia's power sector has shifted up a gear over the last month, with the support of President Vladimir Putin. The reform process has been fraught with difficulties, both practical and political: The scale of the...

Gas and power prices for major US and European hubs.
June 21, 2006... GAS AND POWER PRICES FOR MAJOR US AND EUROPEAN HUBS Stanfield--5.76 Mid-Columbia--28.75 spark spread--11.59 Malin--5.82 COB--42.75 spark spread--1.98 Socal--5.93 Palo Verde--59.25 spark spread--17.72 Houston Ship...

De wit outlines strategy to keep shell on top in LNG.(Horizon)
June 21, 2006... Royal Dutch Shell aims to remain the world's largest private LNG producer by doubling its 2004 equity capacity to 22 million tons (30 billion cubic meters) per year by 2009, including its 34% interest in Woodside and its current 55% stake in...

Pakistan, India LNG race.
June 28, 2006... Both Pakistan and India are on the hunt for gas to feed their growing economies, and the smaller of the two South Asian countries seems to be making better progress. One reason may be its strategy of riding on the coattails of international oil...

Nabucco gets big European boost.
June 28, 2006... The planned 3,400 kilometer Nabucco gas pipeline that would take Caspian gas to Austria via Turkey received a big boost this week when ministers from the five countries backing the project and EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs jointly...

Iran still divided over gas exports.
June 28, 2006... A combination of political uncertainty and commercial wrangling threatens to keep Iran's quest to monetize the giant gas reserves at its offshore South Pars structure at a virtual standstill, despite signs of apparent progress in talks with...

Japanese candidates for Baltic LNG entry.
June 28, 2006... Even as European governments rush to diversify their gas sourcing, Russia's Gazprom is continuing to shuffle schemes within its ambitious portfolio of projects in an attempt to get into LNG further and faster (p1). The latest example is...

Italy sees, plans for gas shortage ahead.
June 28, 2006... Italy's new center-left government last week came out with plans to avoid repeats of last winter's shortfall in Russian gas deliveries. Besides Russia's New Year spat with Ukraine, icy weather as late as Feb. 9 led Gazprom to curtail deliveries...

Modifying official US LNG expectations.
June 28, 2006... Growing global LNG demand and energy security concerns in Europe and Asia strained the relatively small LNG spot market to its limits last year and through this past winter, with the result that US imports stagnated (WGI Feb.1,p6). Over...

Spain-to-France pipe.
June 28, 2006... Spanish electricity utility and no. 2 gas supplier Iberdrola said last week that it was the first to export gas through the new Euskadour pipeline linking Spain to France. The 28 kilometer pipe from Irun to Biarritz took a year to build. The...

Kogas storing in Oman.
June 28, 2006... State Korea Gas Corp. (Kogas) President Lee Soo-Ho and Omani Economy Minister Ahmed bin Abdul Nabi Macki signed a memorandum of understanding this week that envisages construction of LNG storage tanks in Oman to hold Omani LNG purchased in...

WGI publishing times.
June 28, 2006... The next issue of WGI, dated Jul. 5, will not appear on the web or be distributed to email subscribers until Wednesday, Jul. 5. Normally WGI appears in these formats late in the US day Tuesday. However, due to the Jul. 4 US holiday, early web...

Market insight: strong US LNG summer.(Insight)
June 28, 2006... The global LNG spot market has seen robust activity over the past six weeks. Overall, the US has exercised the strongest draw, with BG's Lake Charles, Louisiana, facility taking in record volumes, even though access to the plant has been...

IPE gas futures.(Insight)
June 28, 2006... IPE GAS FUTURES Contract Jun. 26 Week's Jun. 26 Month p/therm High/Low $/MMBtu Jul. '06 35.94 39.15/35.70 6.56 Aug. 39.93 42.75/39.90 7.29 Sep. 39.21 41.80/39.21 7.16...

NYMEX gas futures.(Insight)
June 28, 2006... NYMEX GAS FUTURES Contract Jun. 26 Week's Jun. 19 Month $/MMBtu High/Low $/MMBtu Jul. '06 5.969 7.18/5.96 6.893 Aug. 6.169 7.45/6.16 7.153 Sep. 6.419...

Euro utility mergers threaten to trip over legal hurdles.(Current)
June 28, 2006... The complex web of merger and acquisition proposals connecting some of Europe's biggest power and gas companies has encountered regulatory hurdles and political machinations that are pushing back completion dates and could even cause the entire...

Softening prices begin to affect Canadian, US drilling.(Horizon)
June 28, 2006... Any LNG exporters still worried about the potential for a repeat of the collapse seen a quarter of a century ago in North American gas prices and US LNG import volumes can relax. This spring and summer's weakening prices highlight just how...