World Gas Intelligence articles from May 2004

World Gas Intelligence archives from May 2004

Change comes to Germany.
May 5, 2004... Ruhrgas last week took a large step toward enhanced competition in the German market by agreeing both to introduce entry-exit charging in November in place of point-to-point tariffs, and progressively to reduce the number of balancing zones in...

QP, Exxon launch new tanker tenders.
May 5, 2004... Qatar Petroleum (Qp) and Exxon Mobil are currently evaluating bids under two separate tenders for tankers for their proposed projects to supply 15.6 million tons (21.5 billion cubic meters) per year each to the US and UK. One is for eight...

US facing threat of coal shortage.
May 5, 2004... US coal markets are unusually tight heading into summer, and producers and analysts warn of potential delivery problems in the eastern US that could hamper coal-fired power generation and force some utilities onto gas--at a time when gas...

UK's grain LNG aims for expansion.
May 5, 2004... The UK's National Grid Transco is set to offer extra LNG import capacity at its Isle of Grain terminal near London that could be ready by early 2008, before start-up of one or both of two rival terminals at Milford Haven. But will the UK market...

US firm targets China coalbed methane.
May 5, 2004... A small Houston-based company has elected to pass up what are essentially little more than gleaning opportunities in North America for chances at world-scale coalbed methane prospects in China. Last week, China's Ministry of Commerce gave...

Unocal to sell more gas inside Bangladesh.
May 5, 2004... US Unocal has acceded to a request from the Bangladesh government to start developing Bibiyana, its largest known field in Bangladesh, for the domestic market rather than export to India as earlier planned (WGI Sep.24'03,p1). Unocal's new...

Chile's LNG options.
May 5, 2004... Chile is looking across the Pacific for gas, as an Argentine gas crisis threatens its sole source of supply (Oil Daily Apr.6,p1). Shipping LNG from Indonesia to Chile is a possibility, but the idea may also help Chile bargain with its neighbor...

UK summer spikes.
May 5, 2004... Spot gas prices at the UK's National Balancing Point (NBP) flared early this week amid problems at two North Sea fields. Day-ahead gas for May 5 delivery ended May 4 at 24.25 pence per therm ($4.34 per million Btu or 12.27 [euro] per megawatt...

Market insight: US still soaring.(Insight)
May 5, 2004... North American gas consumers will be paying clearly for both spot and baseload gas this month. A three-day, 36 cents rally took the Henry Hub futures price near the $6 per million Btu mark last week as the May front-month contract rolled off...

Europe, US hone ideas for next generation nuclear plant.(Current)
May 5, 2004... It has been 13 years since a new nuclear reactor was ordered outside Asia. But with many of the West's 1960s and 1970s vintage plants approaching the end of their operating lives, and alternatives looking expensive or otherwise problematic,...

US, Spain, Japan help push world LNG trade up 11% in 2003.(Horizon)
May 5, 2004... After barely 3% growth in 2001 and a heftier 6% rise in 2002, LNG imports worldwide shot up by almost 11% last year to 125.2 million metric tons, according to preliminary figures from the Paris-based International Group of LNG Importers...

Majors reassess China role.
May 12, 2004... International majors eager for a slice of China's huge gas market are expected to sharpen their focus on future LNG import projects, now that foreign participation in the West-to-East pipeline is no longer in sight. And Russia's Gazprom,...

GN sells LNG cargo from Spain into US.
May 12, 2004... Visions of $6 per million Btu gas dancing in their heads, traders at Spain's Gas Natural (GN) brokered a highly unusual deal last December that put a cargo of LNG into the Lake Charles terminal from storage tanks at the Cartagena importing...

Meager additions to UK storage planned.
May 12, 2004... Although the UK looks set to be amply, if not over-, supplied with gas as it shifts into import dependency in the years ahead, new storage capacity is widely seen as necessary to avoid winter peak-day shortfalls in the medium-term (WGI...

New finance models at US LNG terminals.
May 12, 2004... The mechanical equipment at LNG receiving terminals may be standard throughout the industry, but legal and financial experts say that financing terms--at least for new North American ventures--will be site specific, depending on location,...

Gazprom alters OMV contract, Poland next?
May 12, 2004... Austrian energy group OMV has restructured and extended until 2012 the gas supply contracts with Russia's Gazprom that form the baseload of Austrian gas supply. The new agreement will increase the current 5.5 billion cubic meter per year volume...

Trinidad LNG growth.
May 12, 2004... In the wake of a recent debottlenecking of Train 1 at Trinidad's Atlantic LNG, output capacity for the project's three trains combined currently stands at about 1.4 billion cubic feet per day (10.4 million tons per year), up about 8% from 1.3...

US CCGT closure.
May 12, 2004... Not even the most efficient combined-cycle gas plants are safe from closure in highly glutted power markets. Indeed, there are indications that these plants may not hold up well under the stop-start operating style that characterizes peaking...

Kuwaiti gas buying.
May 12, 2004... Kuwait is holding talks with Qatar on possible imports of LNG, as an alternative to a stalled plan to build an underwater pipeline between the two countries, Kuwait Energy Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah told reporters After a meeting...

Nymex gas data bets.
May 12, 2004... Plans by the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) and London-based interdealer broker Icap to start an over-the-counter options market on the weekly changes in US natural gas inventory data have received mixed reviews from the trading...

Market insight: India's price pressures.(Insight)
May 12, 2004... The euphoria that set in when the partners in Indian state Petronet LNG found they had ample buyers for the 2.5 million tons per year of LNG they are slated to take this year from Qatar's RasGas is starting to dissipate. Partners Gail India and...

Spain, Portugal inch toward single Iberian power market.(Current)
May 12, 2004... The new single electricity market for Spain and Portugal, known as Mibel, was finally formally launched on Apr. 20--although legislative delays at the Spanish end mean that its effective start has been postponed yet again (WGI Oct.16'02,p7)....

The LNG threat to Trinidad's booming energy industry.(Horizon)
May 12, 2004... Trinidad's LNG industry has mushroomed. From the first molecule liquefied in 1999 to today's gas intake of 1.6 billion cubic feet per day and counting, the tiny island's Atlantic LNG project has become the primary supplier of LNG to the US...

Fixed gas price pressures.
May 19, 2004... The same global oil price run-up that is underpinning high gas prices amid plentiful supply in the US and UK--home to the world's only firmly established free floating gas prices--is, ironically, adding to pressure for weaker price indexation...

Bontang contract renewal talks start.
May 19, 2004... One of Asia's biggest LNG contracts is up for renewal: Japan's Western Buyers Group's 12 million ton per year agreement with Indonesia's Bontang LNG. The contracts run until 2010-11, but talks have already started. And the wide range of...

Reliance meets NTPC tender conditions.
May 19, 2004... India's Reliance Industries has broken yet another barrier long viewed as unbreachable by industry pundits, undershooting National Thermal Power Corp.'s criteria of a $3 per million Btu gas price--or up to $3.50 on a tax-inclusive delivered...

Taking the next step beyond coal gas.
May 19, 2004... Coal has been the traditional fuel for integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) projects. Recently, however, attention has turned to petroleum coke and raw bitumen from oil sands as the primary feedstocks, especially in areas where natural...

Itera faces downsizing by Gazprom--again.
May 19, 2004... Having failed to retain access to Gazprom's transportation pipeline network, the beleaguered Russia-based, US-registered gas trader Itera is apparently looking to sell more of its world-scale gas production assets--to Gazprom. Itera itself...

Exxon tanker order.
May 19, 2004... Asian shipyards--including Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world's largest shipbuilder--are in talks with Exxon Mobil about a pending order for up to 28 LNG tankers over the next three years for the multiple big expansion projects underway in...

Majors' US plunge.
May 19, 2004... Buried within the sparkling first-quarter results recently reported by top integrated oil and gas companies is a troubling development: US gas production by these companies is falling faster than ever. A combination of steep natural field...

Italy's still-small hub.
May 19, 2004... Italian gas grid operator Snam Rete Gas launched its virtual trading point, Punto di Scambio Virtuale (PSV), in autumn 2003. In the subsequent seven months, from Oct. 1 to Apr. 30, the PSV balancing hub saw 2,565 spot trades, for a sum total of...

More mystery behind Spanish LNG sale into US.
May 19, 2004... Fiction may be stranger than fact after all. Or so it seems regarding the Jan. 16 sale of LNG by Spain's Gas Natural (GN) to BG at Lake Charles. Louisiana, on the Norman Lady, reportedly from storage tanks at Cartagena in Spain (WGI May 12,p...

IPE gas futures.(Insight)
May 19, 2004... IPE GAS FUTURES Contract May 17 Week's May 17 Month p/therm High/Low $/MMBtu Jun.'04 20.89 22.00/20.88 3.70 Jul. 21.48 22.75/21.45 3.80 Aug. 23.17 ...

NYMEX gas future.(Insight)
May 19, 2004... NYMEX GAS FUTURES Contract May 17 Week's May 10 Month $/MMBtu High/Low $/MMBtu Jun. '04 6.424 6.53/6.16 6.184 Jul. 6.510 6.60/6.24 6.266 Aug. 6.541...

Market insight: Spanish swaps.(Insight)
May 19, 2004... Liquidity is stirring in Spain, although there's as yet no single hub nor even a consensus among the 12 active traders as to whether this should be at the technical balancing point (Centro de Gravedad) inside the Enagas system, or rather at one...

European border price estimates.(Insight)
May 19, 2004... EUROPEAN BORDER PRICE ESTIMATES Prices Effective May '04 (US$ per Million Btu) Algeria From/To CIS Netherlands Norway LNG * Belgium...

Popular Libya lays out ambitious gas-to-power plans.(Current)
May 19, 2004... As the oil and gas industry flavor of the month since lifting of US sanctions, Libya recently laid out ambitious plans to garner some $6 billion of investment to add 6,850 megawatts of power-generation capacity by 2015, in order to meet an...

Heat turned up on US industry for uniform gas quality.
May 19, 2004... The traditionally low Btu content of gas entering US pipelines and the patchwork of rules adopted by those pipelines with only vague federal regulatory oversight are both under siege, as LNG takes on a larger role in the country and domestic...

Caribbean rim gas take off.
May 26, 2004... Natural gas looks set to come into its own along South America's Caribbean Coast this decade. After years of playing second fiddle to crude oil production, gas figures prominently in Venezuela's five-year plan. Gas already dominates Trinidad...

Ruhrgas sells gas, will generators buy?
May 26, 2004... Germany's Ruhrgas sold almost all the long-term release gas it offered last week in the second of six annual auctions, after a thinly bid event last year. It's a good sign for German market liquidity, coming soon after Ruhrgas' pledge to...

Korea getting back on gas-reform track.
May 26, 2004... Prospects for reform of South Korea's gas sector, a key precondition for estimating future LNG needs and buying patterns, remain murky, but may begin to clarify soon following the reinstatement early this month of reformist South Korean...

Israel Electric says yes to Egyptian gas.
May 26, 2004... Years of setbacks and delay in formulating a comprehensive Israeli gas strategy could be nearing an end--maybe. The board of state Israel Electric Corp. (IEC) on Sunday finally approved a $2.5 billion agreement in principle to buy 25...

Centrica tries a fix for soaring UK prices.
May 26, 2004... Misery for UK gas consumers continued this week, as record-high world oil prices and an anticipated shutdown all this week of the country's largest North Sea gas field fed into higher values at the UK National Balancing Point (NBP) now and for...

Mexican LNG upstarts.
May 26, 2004... Two new LNG projects have sprung up in Northwest Mexico, both with strong local backing that could help make up for their late arrival relative to proposals for a Royal Dutch/Shell and Sempra Energy terminal in Baja California, and a terminal...

UK storage policy.
May 26, 2004... Scottish Power has won planning consent to build a 170 million cubic meter (6 billion cubic foot) "quick-release" gas storage facility in northwest England, after a fight lasting several years that pitted UK security of supply considerations...

Ever-shrinking Enron.
May 26, 2004... Texas tycoon Oscar Wyatt and a group of private investors and financial institutions are paying $2.2 billion in cash and assumed debt for CrossCountry Energy, the remaining US gas pipeline assets of bankrupt Enron. Final approval from the...

Shell takes long-term view on LNG.
May 26, 2004... LNG won't become a traded commodity like oil, at least not in the foreseeable future. Spot traded volumes--although growing--will probably remain below 10% of total LNG sales, as "resource holders and investors will continue to require...

Market insight: US LNG bonanza.(Insight)
May 26, 2004... Unusually high North American gas futures prices--yanked up by powerful crude oil markets--could have something to do with the fact that LNG import levels look set to keep all four US receiving terminals running at full baseload levels...

Ideas for aiding capital-starved US transmission network.(Current)
May 26, 2004... The US has ample generating capacity, despite the trauma afflicting its merchant sector and the renewed preference for regulated assets (WGI Jan.14,p8). Besides natural gas to fuel that capacity, what the country's electricity sector is short...

European carbon emissions trading scheme in jeopardy.(Horizon)
May 26, 2004... The Kyoto treaty on climate change has been pulled back from the brink of oblivion by word from Russian President Vladimir Putin that Moscow will move more rapidly to ratify the accord--rather than dropping out, as some of his aids earlier said...