World Gas Intelligence articles from June 2007

World Gas Intelligence archives from June 2007

E.On's Russian policy.
June 6, 2007... Russia looms large in E.On's massive investment plans, yet Europe's largest non-state-run utility won't--or can't--say how soon it and German rival BASF's three-way landmark deal with Gazprom for equity in Russia's Yuzhno-Russkoye gas field...

LNG tanker rates surprisingly firm.
June 6, 2007... The LNG tanker spot market is more robust these days than was expected earlier this year, despite growing tanker capacity in relation to liquefaction capacity worldwide. Instead of the $30,000 per day tanker rates predicted for midyear, spot...

Exxon targets 2020 for Alaska pipe.
June 6, 2007... Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Rex Tillerson's statement last week that neither the Mackenzie Gas Project nor the Alaska gas pipeline was viable in today's economic and political climate came as no surprise to officials in Alaska and Canada's...

Hopes high, progress slow in Libya.
June 6, 2007... The big exploration and production sharing agreement that last week brought BP back into Libya will see the company invest at least $900 million over the next seven to 10 years--and probably more like $1.2 billion, a spokesman says--drilling 17...

Shell confidently stays on GTL trail.
June 6, 2007... It might be wrong to write off GTL just yet. Royal Dutch Shell projects confidence that its Pearl gas-to-liquids (GTL) project in Qatar will steer clear of the differing problems faced by Sasol and Exxon Mobil in their respective GTL ventures...

Fine problem at Oryx.
June 6, 2007... More information is coming out about the problems at the Oryx GTL plant in Qatar that have reduced production to less than one-third of design capacity. Industry sources tell WGI that the most serious problem is in the reactor vessel and...

Boston terminal build.
June 6, 2007... US-based Excelerate Energy started construction last week on the first new LNG receiving terminal in New England in decades, its Northeast Gateway deepwater port off Boston, Massachusetts. The Lone Star Horizon vessel is moored near the...

Karachaganak moves.
June 6, 2007... Phase 3 expansion of the big Karachaganak gas and condensate field in Kazakhstan edged closer with signing of an "intergovernmental agreement" last week by Kazakhstan and Russia that foresees a doubling in sour gas supply from the field to...

Market insight: US looking firm.(INSIGHT)
June 6, 2007... The bid-week trading that largely establishes gas costs for US term buyers each month created yet another moment of deja vu in late May, as the prompt-month futures contract rolled off the board in the same $7.50 per million Btu range it has...

Spain's power markets brace for still more takeover turmoil.(CURRENT)
June 6, 2007... Spain's power and gas markets are back in flux, due not least to continuing turmoil in these sectors across the border in France (WGI May16,p7). For a while, it looked as a period of calm would follow the [euro]43.4 billion ($58.5 billion)...

Size of liquefaction trains keeps growing--but should it?(HORIZON)
June 6, 2007... Growth in LNG markets is fueling demand for ever-larger liquefaction trains. But is bigger always going to be better? Or will technical problems multiply along with size? The 7.8 million ton per year (1 billion cubic foot per day)...

Gas-short EU pipes.
June 13, 2007... Both Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler and EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs this month declared that Turkey is on track to become Europe's vital fourth artery for gas supply--alongside existing flows from Russia, North Africa and the...

No LNG could cost California dearly.
June 13, 2007... The demise last month of BHP Billiton's proposed Cabrillo Port project in Southern California has put in question the future of LNG in one of the largest US gas markets (WGI Apr.18,p1). In vetoing Cabrillo, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger...

Much turns on China, Russia gas talks.
June 13, 2007... Beijing's notoriously tough line on gas pricing is evidently complicating Gazprom's efforts not only to negotiate a gas sales deal with China, but also to resolve its relationships with Exxon Mobil at the Sakhalin-1 project and with TNK-BP at...

East Siberia pipe plan.
June 13, 2007... Vyacheslav Shtyrov, president of the Russian republic of Sakha-Yakutia, may have shed some light on possible aspects of the comprehensive plan under development by Moscow for East Siberian and Far East gas reserves (p2). Speaking to...

PNG LNG project in race to market.
June 13, 2007... The race is on. The Australian LNG industry has long fixated on a "window of opportunity" for Asia-Pacific sellers in the 2010-13 timeframe, when demand is expected to far exceed supply (p6). Although many now expect this window to stay open...

France, Germany push for more switching.
June 13, 2007... France and Germany are gearing up for the EU-mandated Jul. 1 full-market opening, including households. For France it's a more fundamental shake-up than in Germany, where regulators had already persuaded certain marketers, notably including...

Nigeria, Algeria pipe.
June 13, 2007... Algeria is apparently seeking to put some momentum behind the long-discussed Nigeria-to-Algeria Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline. The state Algerian press service announced Monday that energy ministers from Algeria, Nigeria and Niger are to launch a...

Small Brass LNG step.
June 13, 2007... Nigeria's next big LNG scheme inched forward recently when Brass LNG awarded Bechtel a construction management contract--not an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract, as widely reported--covering coordination of all plant...

Market insight: Asian spot premiums.(INSIGHT)(Industry overview)
June 13, 2007... The spot market accounted for only an estimated 3% of Asia-Pacific LNG trade in 2006, much less than in the Atlantic Basin. And all the statistical evidence suggests that such spot volumes as do move in Asia move at prices well above term...

UK looks at last to be on track to new nuclear plants.(CURRENT)
June 13, 2007... The UK is making steady--if slow--progress toward a new generation of nuclear reactors to replace the aging fleet that currently provides around 18% of UK power. Most of that fleet is due to close in the next 15 years. In late May, the...

Qatar becomes Kyoto Pioneer in heavy-flaring Mideast.(HORIZON)
June 13, 2007... Qatar Petroleum (QP) late last month successfully registered the Mideast's first--and the world's largest--Kyoto Protocol-compliant carbon credit scheme to reduce gas flaring. Such United Nations registration gives Qatar access to some $500...

Russia's East Siberia plan.
June 20, 2007... Determination on the part of state Gazprom to get top prices for Russian gas--whether it be from Europe or China--is the bedrock that underpins a series of policy pronouncements flowing out of Moscow over the last week on subjects ranging from...

Spain, Algeria gas battle heats up.
June 20, 2007... Spain has moved substantially closer to making good on its threat to restrict direct access by Algerian state Sonatrach to its domestic market in what amounts to retaliation for Algerian restrictions on direct marketing by such Spanish...

Gazprom again shifts Shtokman gears.
June 20, 2007... Gazprom seems to be keeping its options open in order to find the best price not only for East Siberian gas, but also in its development plans for the massive offshore Barents Sea Shtokman fields. Circling back around almost to where it began,...

India outlines hurdles to Iranian pipeline.
June 20, 2007... India, Pakistan and Iran are inching closer to a deal to build a roughly 2,300 kilometer pipeline to supply an initial 60 million cubic meters (2.1 billion cubic feet) per day of Iranian gas, split equally between India and Pakistan. But...

Tangguh proves diverting for Sempra.
June 20, 2007... Just when the high-profile rejection of BHP Billiton's Cabrillo Port proposal offshore Los Angeles has put the future of LNG supply to the US West Coast in doubt, questions are cropping up over supply at the single terminal approved in the...

Divergent Shell views on India, China LNG.
June 20, 2007... The contrast between India's growing acceptance of global gas prices and China's continuing resistance was brought into sharp relief in remarks by Shell Gas and Power Executive Vice President for Global Business Peter de Wit on the sidelines of...

Russia moves to cut gas flaring.
June 20, 2007... Russian Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev this week told oil firms in the West Siberian region of Khanty Mansiysk that his ministry will take steps to introduce fines from 2009 aimed at reducing the flaring of associated gas in Russia by...

Puerto Rico gasifies.
June 20, 2007... Puerto Rico's Penuelas LNG terminal is set to see increased activity starting next year. Terminal operator Gas Natural (GN) of Spain has signed up Puerto Rico's electricity authority, Prepa, to take 700 million cubic meter per year (70 million...

Market insight: Austrian liquidity.(INSIGHT)
June 20, 2007... The volume gap is narrowing between Europe's third-largest trading hub--the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) launched in the Netherlands in 2003--and the fourth-ranked Hub--at Baumgarten in Austria. But has Baumgarten, located where the pipeline...

Euro C[O.sub.2] trading recovery continues, but doubts remain.(CURRENT)
June 20, 2007... The recovery that started earlier this year in prices for carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]) emission permits for 2008 and beyond continues in Europe's emissions trading system (ETS). Credit for this prolonged recovery goes to the firm stance Brussels...

Will Mackenzie pipeline delay hurt oil sands prospects?(HORIZON)
June 20, 2007... Oil sands extraction and upgrading projects in the Canadian province of Alberta are among North America's fastest-growing markets for natural gas, with current consumption exceeding 1 billion cubic feet per day to fuel production of 1 million...

Gazprom's pipe politics.
June 27, 2007... Tentative agreement by Gazprom and Italy's Eni on a plan to deliver Russian gas to Europe via a 900 kilometer "South Stream" pipeline running from Russia under the Black Sea to Bulgaria is first and foremost a shot across Turkey's bow, as the...

LNG pulling dollars off US gas price.
June 27, 2007... Although LNG still constitutes only a marginal percentage of US gas supply, it has had a palpable effect on the country's gas market this summer, propping up storage levels in the wake of diminished Canadian imports and thus taking pressure off...

Asian buyers downplay diversion deals.
June 27, 2007... Arbitrage trading of LNG cargoes may be common between the US and Europe, but traders and market analysts remain skeptical as to how much momentum the "diversion" trend will generate in conservative Asian markets. Japan and South Korea...

Gazprom sets Kovykta gas sales terms.
June 27, 2007... Gazprom's acquisition of the massive East Siberian Kovykta gas field from TNK-BP could result in acceleration of a scheme for developing its 2 trillion cubic meters (70 trillion cubic feet) of reserves that was approved by the Russian...

Greece-Italy pipe still an active contender.
June 27, 2007... Not to be upstaged by Gazprom's and Eni's South Stream announcement, Italy's Edison is stressing that it and Greek Depa, with support from Turkey's Botas, are at an advanced stage of planning the 800 kilometer Interconnection Greece-Italy...

GN's new Angola play.
June 27, 2007... Spanish utility Gas Natural (GN) said Tuesday it has agreed with Angolan state Sonangol to develop an integrated gas project in Angola. While it's too soon to tell whether the project will be linked in any way to Angola LNG, it's clear that GN...

Brazil's flexi-LNG hunt.
June 27, 2007... More than anything else, the speed and determination with which Brazil's state-controlled Petrobras is pursuing LNG deals underscores the complexity of ensuing that even relatively modest supply is available when you need it, without locking...

Spain, Algeria: much ado about price.
June 27, 2007... Spain's Industry Ministry this week told WGI what had already become patently evident--Spain and Algeria are going through a period of negotiation concerning various aspects of their energy policy. The latest wrinkle saw Algerian Energy...

Market insight: ongoing US LNG draw.(INSIGHT)
June 27, 2007... The US remains entrenched as the destination of choice in the global spot LNG market, continuing to draw record volumes despite closure of the Cove Point, Maryland, receiving terminal for maintenance through the end of June (WGI Apr.4,p1). This...

US striving for nuclear renaissance, amid some stumbling.(CURRENT)
June 27, 2007... US nuclear plants have had a good run in recent years after a rocky start resulting not only from public opposition, but also technical and operational problems related to the hodgepodge of designs that distinguish the US industry from a more...

"Pure LNG plays" remain a rarity on stock markets.(HORIZON)
June 27, 2007... Although the global LNG industry is growing at a rapid pace, "pure LNG plays" allowing small-scale equity investors to tap into this lucrative market remain few and far between. Opportunities are particularly scarce on the liquefaction side,...