World Gas Intelligence articles from March 2005

World Gas Intelligence archives from March 2005

Qatar: innovations, irritations.
March 2, 2005... Qatar may be small, but it's starting to throw its ever-increasing weight around LNG markets and corporate board rooms worldwide. Innovations include the first long-term sale to continental Europe with no oil-price linkage. Irritated corporate...

Bolivia eyes piped gas price hikes, not LNG.
March 2, 2005... The days of cheap Bolivian gas sales to its neighbors are about to end, permitting the country to benefit from a focus on regional sales, while leaving LNG development to languish, Bolivian Mining and Hydrocarbons Minister Guillermo Torres said...

Total, Exxon unhappy over Qatargas-2.
March 2, 2005... A four-hour delay in the announcement of a Total investment and LNG purchase deal with Qatargas-2--previously owned 70% by state Qatar Petroleum (QP) and 30% by Exxon Mobil--while the private partners hammered out "sticking points" that...

Shell's Qatar, Italy: deals raise eyebrows.
March 2, 2005... Coincidence or not, the same week that saw Royal Dutch/Shell finally land its long sought 30% stake in a 7.8 million ton per year Qatari LNG train, dubbed Qatargas-4, saw the Anglo-Dutch major announcing plans for a receiving terminal in the...

LNG shortfall fuels NW Europe price spike.
March 2, 2005... Prompt gas prices in northwest Europe reached record levels late last week, as continental gas suppliers bought aggressively to cover short positions amid an unusually lengthy cold spell. Evidence suggests that an earlier diversion of LNG...

Tough marketing stance slows Gorgon.
March 2, 2005... A relatively tough stance on pricing and other terms in the wake of the major concessions made to land a contract in China looks to be crimping sales efforts by Australian LNG projects (WGI Sep.25'02,p2). Korea Gas Corp. (Kogas) officials...

Eastern pipe to India.
March 2, 2005... India has taken another step toward obtaining its first pipeline gas imports, in the form of an agreement with Myanmar and Bangladesh to sign by the end of March a tripartite deal to lay an estimated $1 billion Myanmar-to-India gas line. ...

European end-user prices steadier.
March 2, 2005... Gas prices to end-users in seven key European Union markets surveyed by Energy Advice for WGI have continued to rise since October 2004. especially where price indexation is to gasoil (see Special Supplement). They are now significantly higher...

Market insight: LNG ripple effect.(Insight)
March 2, 2005... The past month has provided several reminders that an LNG strategy of moving cargoes to alternative, high-value markets carries risks for companies with supply obligations at home--especially in the winter. The first to bump up against this in...

French, Italians play high stakes power-sector poker.(Current)
March 2, 2005... Even as high-level efforts continue to find a way out of the impasse surrounding a role for Electricite de France (EdF) in Italy's power sector, the French company has put up for sale its entire stake in Italenergia, the holding company that...

Many barrels per day of GTL poised to hit markets by 2012.(Horizon)
March 2, 2005... Has the commerciality of the natural gas-to-liquids (GTL) business that has for so long been "just around the corner" finally arrived? GTL project developers are starting to sound that way. Although this was an LNG week for Qatar, the tiny...

European end-user prices (in Eurocents/kWh).
March 2, 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 Jan. '05 2.38 2.50 2.25...

European end-user prices (in US dollars/MMBtu).
March 2, 2005... European End-User Prices (In US Dollars/MMBtu) Gas Prices: 100,000 cm/yr 1 Million cm/yr Typical High Low Typical High Low Belgium Jan. '05 9.13 9.61 ...

Trinidad, Venezuela worry US.
March 9, 2005... Government representatives from Trinidad and Tobago and from Venezuela plan to meet within the next few weeks to try and advance a long-debated scheme to unitize parts of the two countries' gas reserves, probably in preparation for putting...

Regulators loom over Belgian, UK terminals.
March 9, 2005... Belgian federal energy regulator Creg is already getting restive over owner-operator Fluxys LNG's management of the Zeebrugge LNG terminal, and the details of last week's RasGas-2 sale of Qatari LNG to sister firm Distrigas could conceivably...

Tangguh brings BP into Asia LNG--at last.
March 9, 2005... It was April 2001, when BP Senior Vice President for External Affairs John O'Reilly told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar in Jakarta, "We're talking possible construction of Tangguh LNG sometime in spring next year." Several springs...

Disarray on multiple fronts hits Gazprom.
March 9, 2005... It may yet emerge as the Russian national champion and a diversified oil--as well as gas--giant in its own right, with direct gas pipeline access to Europe and LNG sales in the US. But at the moment, Gazprom looks to be facing disarray on all...

Sempra LNG project adapts, gains users.
March 9, 2005... The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) intends to hand out permits for LNG receiving terminals freely and "let the market decide" which should actually be built (WGI Feb.23,p5). After initially rejecting the fast project blessed by...

Sonatrach sells new pipeline gas to Italy.
March 9, 2005... Italian energy group Edison this week signed a letter of intent with Algerian state Sonatrach for "up to" 4 billion cubic meters per year (387 million cubic feet per day) of Algerian gas through the proposed Galsi Pipeline that would connect...

Petronas' Egypt cargo.
March 9, 2005... After a sputtering start earlier this year, the Spanish-Egyptian (Segas) LNG plant at Damietta has produced its third cargo. The lifter is Malaysian state Petronas, which picked up the LNG Friday on the Methane Kari Elin, a ship owned by BG but...

Price spikes threaten UK gas demand.
March 9, 2005... Northwest European spot gas prices soared to new record highs on Mar. 3, when within-day UK gas traded up to 1.70 [pounds sterling] per therm ($32.50 per million Btu or $195 per barrel oil equivalent), sending shivers down the spine of...

Market insight: oil leads in US.(Insight)
March 9, 2005... With crude oil futures in New York circling the $55 per barrel mark, traders are predicting that New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) natural gas futures will soon test $7 per million Btu--or more--despite increasingly bearish fundamentals,...

Thailand set to use lots more gas for power generation.(Current)
March 9, 2005... Thailand expects to see brisk 6% per year growth in electricity demand through 2009 on the back of strong economic expansion, with the bulk of the new generation capacity that is used to meet that demand likely to be gas-fired. One result...

US, EU industry groups weigh in on gas quality standards.(Horizon)
March 9, 2005... The US gas industry last week took a step toward adoption of a relatively narrow and low-heat content standard for gas entering its pipelines, with publication of a "White Paper on Interchangeability" by the Natural Gas Council, a national...

Definitive word from Trinidad.
March 16, 2005... Trinidad and Tobago's government intends to be involved at all stages in any fifth LNG train developed in the country, Prime Minister Patrick Manning told delegates at this year's Gastech 2005 conference in Bilbao. That includes shipping,...

Kogas chief ousted amid high prices.
March 16, 2005... The board of state Korea Gas Corp. (Kogas) this week voted to end President Oh Kang Hyun's tenure, company insiders confirm--although any official announcements about Oh's retirement will be issued only after a Kogas shareholders meeting in...

NW shelf train 5 set, despite few buyers.
March 16, 2005... Despite losing out to rivals in a recent South Korean tender for around 2 million tons per year of LNG, partners in Australia's North West Shelf are accelerating development of a fifth liquefaction train--without a full complement of customers...

Europe's tight markets interrupt, pull in LNG.
March 16, 2005... Although spot prices have eased over the last week in the UK and at Belgium's Zeebrugge hub, both the Northwest Europe and Spanish gas markets remain tight--and continue to exercise a strong pull on LNG as a result (see map,p7). Amid...

Euro carbon trade off to strong start.
March 16, 2005... The European Union's new carbon market has gotten off to a brisk start this year, even though some of the pieces of the emissions trading scheme (ETS) have still to be put into place. So brisk, in fact, that it may have contributed to the...

Egypt and Nabucco.
March 16, 2005... Egyptian Energy Minister Sameh Fahmy on Monday outlined Cairo's ambition to export gas by pipeline beyond the Levant region and up into Eastern and Mediterranean Europe via the planned Nabucco pipeline, alongside growing LNG shipments to the US...

E.On Ruhrgas sales.
March 16, 2005... E.On Ruhrgas, the mainland Europe gas supply division of German power giant E.On, increased sales last year by 4% or some 2.4 billion cubic meters, to 60.9 Bcm (641.4 terawatt-hours). But it appears that sales inside Germany actually fell...

Qatar books 50 slots at Korean shipyards.
March 16, 2005... Qatar has booked over 50 slots in three South Korean shipyards for new LNG carriers to be built between now and 2012, Qatargas Chief Operating Officer for Commercial and Shipping Ali Al-Hammadi told WGI Mar. 14. Although he did not say how...

Market insight: high Asian prices.(Insight)
March 16, 2005... While South Korea's LNG import prices are rising faster than those into Japan, in neither case is formula pricing protecting these big importers effectively from the run-up in crude oil prices. South Korea's average price for LNG in 2004...

Drought hits hydro in US Pacific Northwest--helping gas.(Current)
March 16, 2005... Nobody's talking at this stage about a repeat of the 2000-01 California energy crisis. But drought conditions in the Pacific Northwest and hefty economic growth all along the coast have electricity back in tight supply in the region. When it...

Darkness before dawn for Latin American gas integration?(Horizon)
March 16, 2005... The integrated Southern Cone Latin American gas market dreamed of at the beginning of this decade, with Brazil and Bolivia as the consuming and producing lynchpins, respectively, may not be as doomed as it seemed in the intervening years....

Sasol eyes Australia, iron for next GTL leg.
March 16, 2005... If ample evidence weren't available elsewhere that gas-to-liquids (GTL) technology is coming into its own, South African synthetic fuel producer and gas-to-liquids (GTL) pioneer Sasol would provide it (WGI Mar.2,p8). Earlier this week, the...

West African LNG leap.
March 23, 2005... By 2007, Nigeria LNG capacity will have doubled to 22 million tons per year, its customer base will have risen to 11 holding a total of 16 supply contracts, and cargo loadings will be running at 400 per year, NLNG Managing Director Chris Haynes...

Kogas spot purchasing comes under fire.
March 23, 2005... The recent decision by the state-controlled board of the Korea Gas Corp. (Kogas) to end the tenure of President Oh Kang Hyun highlights an ongoing debate within South Korea that could have major implications for global LNG markets in the months...

How Novatek plays in Gazprom's playground.
March 23, 2005... Last September Russia's largest independent gas producer, Novatek, was lifted from obscurity when France's Total announced plans to pick up a 25% stake in the producer for just under $1 billion. Since then the deal has languished. Despite a...

Iran progresses with sales to Oman, Kuwait.
March 23, 2005... Slow to begin competing with gas-exporting rival Qatar, Iran took great strides last week towards cornering a strong position for itself within regional Mideast Gulf markets. On the sidelines of the Opec conference in Isfahan, Iran signed...

Australia's Browse overtakes sunrise.
March 23, 2005... If Australia and East Timor had set aside differences over a maritime boundary, Woodside's Greater Sunrise LNG project would very likely have won a race to become the country's second LNG project after North West Shelf and be on track to...

New US terminals.
March 23, 2005... A few years ago, the odds would have been very long against what was then El Paso's Energy Bridge becoming the first new US LNG receiving facility in more than two decades--or on Cheniere Energy as the first developer to turn dirt for an...

Hope still high for Qatar-Pakistan pipe.
March 23, 2005... Backers of the Gulf South Asia (Gusa) project, aimed at taking 1.6 billion cubic feet per day (16.5 billion cubic meters per year) of Qatari gas to Pakistan, are "optimistic" about the project's chances--especially after Pakistani Prime...

Market insight: next winter's pinch points.(Insight)
March 23, 2005... Prompt gas prices in Northwest Europe have eased dramatically from highs of two weeks ago, with the advent of mild weather across Western Europe. But forward prices have risen--indicating likely pinch points running from the UK down to Spain...

Single Iberian market delayed as Spain, Portugal reassess.(Current)
March 23, 2005... Spanish and Portuguese power generators have enjoyed healthy earnings of late on the back of record high electricity prices in Spain, arising from a recent cold snap, and low hydro production due to dry weather (WGI Mar. 16,p3). But these...

How Chevron's John Gass sees global LNG developing: John Gass, president of ChevronTexaco Global Gas, gave WGI his development outlook for the international gas business at the recent Gastech conference in Bilbao, Spain.(Horizon)
March 23, 2005... WGI: How do you see the global LNG business developing in the years ahead? Gass: There is a lot of enthusiasm about the LNG business and the growth of natural gas in general around the world. For me, the two most significant reasons why...

Mexico's major LNG agenda.
March 30, 2005... Mexico's Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) is preparing to issue several gas purchase and LNG terminal construction tenders in the near future, as the country's state electricity generator and its energy regulator together pursue an...

India's unpopular idea: "profit gas in kind".
March 30, 2005... The government in New Delhi has floated, as a trial balloon, the concept that it might take in kind, rather than cash, its share of "profit gas" under production-sharing contracts at privately operated Indian gas fields--and international...

Skeptics cast doubt on China's LNG plan.
March 30, 2005... Will there be enough gas demand to take up the send-out from the increasingly lengthy string of LNG terminals that China is gearing up to build over the next decade? This was one of the background topics of major concern--occasionally breaking...

Petchem makers shy away from costly gas.
March 30, 2005... Producers may be enjoying high gas prices in North America and Europe, but petrochemical plant operators find gas costs unpleasantly taxing to the bottom line--increasingly to the point that reduced operations or offshore moves are their only...

More UK price spikes seen as inevitable.
March 30, 2005... Parliamentarians in the UK, Western Europe's largest and most liberalized gas market, have completed their committee report into a steep price spike in early autumn 2004, concluding that more such events can be expected in the future (WGI...

Turkey's gas release tender slips again.
March 30, 2005... The deadline for a gas release tender by Turkish state pipeline operator Botas has proved to be a moving target, as expected (WGI Jan.19,p5). Bids from Turkish-registered companies vying to take over shares of Botas' gas supply contracts are...

Egypt wheels, deals.
March 30, 2005... Egypt's burgeoning gas export business looks set to burgeon further. Last week, expressions of interest from as far afield as Gazprom were following by signing of a memorandum of understanding by longtime Egyptian players BP and Eni with state...

Repsol in Venezuela.
March 30, 2005... Spain's Repsol YPF will explore the possibility of building a separate LNG plant on Venezuela's coast--as well as entering that country's flagship Mariscal Sucre export project--as part of an agreement with state Petroleos de Venezuela (PDV)....

Market insight: Europe hogs spot LNG.(Insight)
March 30, 2005... LNG buyers in Europe attracted almost all the March spot cargoes available in the Atlantic Basin, completely depriving the spot-dependent US terminal at Lake Charles, Louisiana, of any supplies last month. Its send-out plunged to a meager...

Crack opens in Chinese grid operators' market monopoly.(Current)
March 30, 2005... Over the last two years, Beijing has split the State Power Corp. that once controlled roughly half the country's generating capacity and almost all its transmission and distribution assets into five generating companies and two grid operators,...

Meteoric LNG shipping growth brings safety risks.(Horizon)
March 30, 2005... Downward pressure on charter rates for LNG carriers could have a negative effect on the quality of tanker operations, a leading shipping consultant argued recently--just ahead of a similar warning by a former UK accident investigator, now...