World Gas Intelligence articles from September 2005

World Gas Intelligence archives from September 2005

Katrina ravages US Gulf.
September 7, 2005... Hurricane Katrina wreaked an unprecedented level of havoc on the Central Gulf of Mexico and Gulf Coast natural gas sector, leaving the North American natural gas market in an even more precarious position than an already tight supply-demand...

Nigeria LNG risks feed gas shortfall.
September 7, 2005... Nigeria LNG has played down concerns that shortages of gas feedstock could leave it unable to meet contractual commitments from Trains 4 and 5, when these are scheduled to start commercial production early next year. It could all add to...

Gazprom thinks big for US LNG.
September 7, 2005... Gazprom's first traded LNG cargo was greeted with a big fanfare when it arrived in the US last Friday. "This is the beginning of stable, reliable and regular supplies of Gazprom LNG to the US," said Alexander Medvedev, head of...

Australian outage cuts cargoes.
September 7, 2005... Australia's Woodside, which operates the North West Shelf LNG export complex, said last Wednesday that it has shut down the largest and newest of its four LNG processing trains at Karratha in Western Australia to repair a mixed refrigerant...

Egyptian T2 start-up.
September 7, 2005... The UK's BG announced on Sep. 5 that it had started production ahead of schedule at the second train of the Egyptian LNG (ELNG) venture that it co-owns with Malaysia's Petronas and state entities Egyptian General Petroleum Corp. (EGPC) and...

Iran's leaders ask: why export gas?
September 7, 2005... Following the surprise election in June of a new conservative president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran is witnessing a heated political debate over how to manage the country's giant offshore gas reserves. On one side of the spectrum are...

Ukraine-Turkmen deal.
September 7, 2005... In a bid to ease its dependence on Russian gas deliveries, Ukraine plans to sign a 30-year gas supply contract with Turkmenistan, which exports the bulk of its gas to Ukraine. State-run oil and gas company Naftogas Ukrainy expects that the...

Clarification.
September 7, 2005... Italy's Eni and Libya's NOC will be ramping up to full production from their West Libya Gas project of l0 billion cubic meters per year by end-2005 and not capping output at 8 Bcm/yr as reported in WGI two weeks ago (WGI Aug.24,p4). Eni says it...

Iran-India pipe accord.
September 7, 2005... India and Iran have reached political agreement to finalize a proposed $7.4 billion gas pipeline project, despite doubts raised in both countries over the project (p4). India's relations with neighbor Pakistan are currently good but risk not...

Market insight: Katrina's impact.(Insight)
September 7, 2005... While the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) September futures contract rolling off the board last week at a record $10.847 per million Btu settlement looked excessive then, it has set the major basis for markets in the Northeast at over...

IPE gas futures.(Insight)
September 7, 2005... IPE GAS FUTURES Contract Sep.5 Week's Sep.5 Month p/therm High/Low $/MMBtu Oct. '05 38.70 41.45/38.65 7.14 Nov. 52.73 55.75/52.25...

Nymex gas futures.(Insight)
September 7, 2005... NYMEX GAS FUTURES Contract Sep.2 ([dagger]) Week's Aug. 29 Month $/MMBtu High/Low $/MMBtu Oct. '05 11.691 12.30/10.65 11.139 Nov. 11.941 ...

North American gas and comparative fuel prices.(Insight)
September 7, 2005... NORTH AMERICAN GAS AND COMPARATIVE FUEL PRICES ($/MMBtu) Pipeline Point/City Gate Sep. Bid-Week * Aug. '05 Henry Hub 11.06 7.65 Trunkline Louisiana ...

Spain starts new wave of European consolidation.(CURRENT)
September 7, 2005... The latest wave of consolidation in Europe's gas and power sector is gathering pace, with the announcement on Monday by Spain's leading gas player Gas Natural (GN) that it has launched a 100% takeover bid for country's biggest power generator...

Gas and power prices for major US and European hubs.(CURRENT)
September 7, 2005... Stanfield 9.27 Mid-Columbia 87.50 spark spread 22.59 Malin 9.44 COB 92.67 spark spread 26.62 Socal ...

Status report on Europe's slow hub-building effort.(Horizon)
September 7, 2005... Much has been written about the creation of "trading hubs" in Western Europe as part of the slow process of developing spot and futures trading with transparent prices that could provide the basis for term gas markets independent of the oil...

German balancing act.
September 14, 2005... Political controversy on several fronts makes the North European Gas Pipeline (NEGP) far from a done deal, despite German energy giant E.On's agreement last week to become the third partner alongside Russia's Gazprom and German chemicals firm...

Fox's push for Mexican gas reform.
September 14, 2005... In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and ensuing double-digit North American gas prices, Mexican President Vicente Fox has spotted an opportunity to push for ambitious energy reforms that, if approved by Congress, would allow private companies to...

China warms to gas, hurdles remain.
September 14, 2005... High oil prices have left the Chinese government more determined than ever to boost the role of gas in China's energy mix, and official consumption forecasts have been raised substantially. But a clear policy is still lacking on how to achieve...

Katrina's effects to be felt long term.
September 14, 2005... Restoring 60% of the US Gulf of Mexico's normal gas output following Hurricane Katrina two weeks ago was relatively easy. More than 6 billion cubic feet per day of the Gulf's average 10 Bcf/d is again moving to markets, the US Minerals...

Dolphin goal one met, two may be tough.
September 14, 2005... Dolphin Energy's final agreement to supply state Oman Oil Co. with 200 million cubic feet per day (2.1 billion cubic meters per year) of gas for 25 years beginning in early 2008 puts the 51% Abu Dhabi government-owned venture close to its...

Reining in Gazprom.
September 14, 2005... The Russian state may be calling a halt to Gazprom's practice of boosting its output and expanding its reserve base by acquiring controlling stakes in independent gas producers on the cheap. The practice has helped in allowing Gazprom to...

Petronas' UK ploy.
September 14, 2005... Malaysian state Petronas has acquired a 3.95% stake in top UK gas marketer Centrica for an estimated 375 million [pounds sterling] ($700 million), but has publicly said it doesn't want more. The main point of the exercise may well be to warn...

Cheniere launches LNG trading platform.
September 14, 2005... LNG terminal developer Cheniere Energy is launching into LNG trading and US gas marketing in a big way, Last week, the company introduced its North American LNG Gateway Program. described as an electronic platform for global suppliers to sell...

Market insight: Taiwan joins gas grab.(Insight)
September 14, 2005... Taiwan's state electricity generator Taipower has advanced a request for gas to fire a huge new combined-cycle power plant by a year to April 2006, leaving the country's monopoly purchaser Chinese Petroleum Corp. (CPC) facing an unexpected...

US grapples with high power prices, reliability concerns.(Current)
September 14, 2005... US electricity pricing and reliability were already raising red flags before Hurricane Katrina hit the eastern Gulf Coast late last month. With gas prices now firmly in double digits and stricken gas-fired generation capacity along the Gulf of...

Official US LNG data shed little light on real LNG prices.(Horizon)
September 14, 2005... Even as the LNG business is undergoing a massive revival in the US, it still lacks in large measure the kind of transparency common to global oil and North American natural gas markets--especially when it comes to pricing. LNG importers...

Shtokman maneuvering.
September 21, 2005... Russia's Gazprom last week took another step in its ambitious plan to become a leading player on the international LNG stage by short-listing five companies as potential partners for development of the giant Shtokmanovskoye gas field in...

Egypt LNG projects: one out, one up.
September 21, 2005... Egypt's Spanish-Egyptian LNG (Segas) project at Damietta has become the fourth LNG export complex to spring a maintenance outage on the world market in the last month--although that bad news is balanced by good news, as another plant in Egypt...

Indonesia faces big renewal challenge.
September 21, 2005... Given regulatory uncertainties, security concerns, problems with gas production at both its Bontang and Arun LNG facilities, and the increasing diversion of gas to domestic fertilizer producers, Indonesia' s prospects for renewing much of the...

Gas becoming cost effective in China.
September 21, 2005... Gas is starting to look competitive in China even with the historically cheap coal that still dominates that country's energy mix, accounting for 70% of primary energy consumption. That's on top of projected growth in demand for distributed...

US merchant trading takes new forms.
September 21, 2005... In what might be the final chapter of the US utility-based merchant energy saga, Duke Energy last week decided that its merchant unit Duke Energy North America (DENA) is not going to get out of the red and the time had come to cut its losses....

High Norway output.
September 21, 2005... Norwegian gas exports are on track to set another record in the 2004-05 gas year that ends Oct. 1, according to the country's subsea pipeline operator Gassco, which expects Norwegian gas exports for the 12 months to hit 83.5 billion cubic...

Snohvit: late, costly.
September 21, 2005... Norway's Statoil has signaled a further eight-month delay for the 4.1 million ton (5.7 billion cubic meter) per year Snohvit LNG project, while also tacking another $1.1 billion onto mushrooming project cost estimates. First gas production is...

US Hurricane Rita.
September 21, 2005... The US offshore oil and gas industry has not even completed its assessment of Hurricane Katrina's damage to production, transportation and processing infrastructure--much less completed repairs--and it is already facing what could be an equally...

Plans for Trinidad Train 4 firm up.
September 21, 2005... Trinidad and Tobago's Atlantic LNG (ALNG) expansion is continuing apace, with Train 4 set to come on line in the first week of November. Train 4 should reach full production by the end of March 2006, a source close to the project tells WGI. The...

Market insight: German pressures.(Insight)
September 21, 2005... The stalemate that resulted from German elections on Sunday leaves it highly uncertain what political configuration the country's next government will take. Much more certain is the prospect of soaring gas prices for German consumers and of...

GN bid for Endesa raises competition concerns in Spain.(CURRENT)
September 21, 2005... The recent hostile 22.6 billion [euro] ($28.2 billion) bid by leading Spanish gas company Gas Natural (GN) for 100% of Spain's biggest power firm, Endesa, has raised fears that competition will be stifled in the country's electricity and...

High oil, gas prices drive EU toward renewables, efficiency.(Horizon)
September 21, 2005... High oil prices, which have pulled gas and power prices up in their wake, are leading to a fresh push in the European Union to foster renewable energy, as well as to improve energy efficiency, as means to reduce the continent's energy import...

Russia, China talk pipes.
September 28, 2005... Russian Gazprom's interest in pipeline gas sales to China from East Siberia--most likely from the TNK-BP-controlled Kovykta field--looks to be picking up again after a long period in which the gas giant spurned the concept (WGI Jun.29,p1)....

E.On lands in court over contract rules.
September 28, 2005... Germany's Federal Cartel Office is taking E.On Ruhrgas to court "within weeks" to enforce new regulations on gas contract terms. E.On Ruhrgas supplies over half of Germany's wholesale market (WGI Mar. 16,p5). Since January the agency has...

India LNG: Qatar up, Iran maybe out.
September 28, 2005... India looks to have taken one step forward in efforts to line up additional LNG supply from Qatar, while virtually hurling itself off a cliff in terms of its prospects for obtaining Iranian pipeline gas or LNG. If this realignment holds, one...

Nigeria to supply Altamira, says Shell.
September 28, 2005... Oil majors often shy away from matching up LNG import and export project startup dates far in advance, in case one gets delayed or falls through, preferring instead to talk of portfolio management. In Royal Dutch Shell's case, this has proved...

Gazprom moves on Baltic, Shtokman LNG.
September 28, 2005... Suggestions early this week by a Russian government official that an LNG partnership between Gazprom and Petro-Canada would be firming up soon and advancing the deadline for first exports of LNG from Russia to 2007 appear overly optimistic,...

Costly LNG again endangering Dabhol.
September 28, 2005... India's recently revived Dabhol Power project may be poised to trip again, as increasingly costly LNG threatens to inflate the final cost of electricity to Dabhol's customers to locally untenable levels (p6). In a replay of the events that...

Euro energy mergers.
September 28, 2005... The recent drive towards consolidation in the European energy sector could slow as a result of a ruling last week by the European Union's second highest court upholding the EU Commission's 2004 decision to prohibit the takeover of incumbent Gas...

Qatar contracts flow.
September 28, 2005... French engineering contractor Technip and Japan's Chiyoda last week signed an estimated $4 billion contract with Qatar's RasGas-3 venture to provide engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for what will be two of the world's...

Market insight: hurricane effects.(Insight)
September 28, 2005... The effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on US gas production and prices are starkly evident in the netbacks in the $10-$11 per million Btu range that producers can expect to earn on sales into the US market at the moment (see table below)....

New energy balance: coal price down, gas and carbon up.(CURRENT)
September 28, 2005... The sharp rise in coal prices that accompanied the surge in oil prices over the last couple of years looks to have run its course. International coal prices are now plunging, providing a boost to the fuel's competitiveness and to carbon dioxide...

French total outlines its strategy for LNG growth.(Horizon)(Interview)
September 28, 2005... French oil and gas major Total was an important pioneer in LNG, with a dominant supply position in Indonesia and smaller equity stakes in projects in Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Oman and through its takeover of Elf, Nigeria. It is now launching an LNG...