Gazprom Soldiers on With Nord Stream II

Poland has achieved a significant victory in its battle against German and Russian energy collaboration. Daunted by Polish regulations, five international giants in the natural gas industry announced Aug. 12 that they had pulled out of an agreement to join Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom in the Nord Stream II AG consortium. The consortium — which Gazprom currently owns in its entirety — will oversee the construction and operation of the controversial Nord Stream II pipeline, which is set to enter service in 2019. The pullout leaves Gazprom to move forward with the 55 billion-cubic-meter natural gas pipeline project, estimated to cost between $8 billion and $11 billion, by itself, and it could have serious consequences across Northern and Central Europe. Even so, Gazprom will persevere.

Iraq’s Deal With Oil Majors Could Crush OPEC’s Output Freeze Plans

Iraq and oil majors BP (NYSE:BP), Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) and Lukoil have agreed to resume investments in oil fields the foreign groups are developing, which is expected to raise the country’s crude output by 250,000-350,000 barrels per day in 2017, Reuters reported on Thursday, quoting Iraqi officials—a move that has the potential to aggravate the supply glut and muddy the waters of the additional OPEC meeting in September, which some were glass-half-fulling might end with a production cap of some sort.

EU Looks To Break Baltic Dependence on Russian Energy

After EU-member states agreed on a Commission proposal, the EU will invest €263 million in key gas and electricity projects across the Union with primary focus on the Baltic Sea region.

The European Commission announced on Friday (15 July) in a press release that the 28 member states agreed to invest €263 million in trans-European energy infrastructure projects. The biggest share of the support will be destined to the Baltic Sea region to help the expansion of the gas infrastructure, meanwhile the other part of the investment will support the electricity sector across the European Union.

What The Brexit Result Means For The UK Oil And Gas Industry

Britain has woken up this morning to the news that it will be leaving the European Union. The decision, won by a majority of just four percent, is not just the result of months of campaigning by Brexit supporters, but four decades of latent Euroscepticism. The populist will of the people has overruled warnings from politicians, economists, historians and all manner of other experts and set Britain on an uncertain course.

How you can stop the UK giving millions to dirty power

What if I told you the UK Government plans to hand out just under $1 billion to energy companies in exchange for the promise that they will carry on producing dirty coal and diesel-fired power? Well, they and governments across Europe are doing just this, so hold on to your outrage while I take you through the very boring sounding ‘capacity mechanisms’, their instrument for doing this. 

Uranium Prices Set To Double By 2018

With prices set to double by 2018, we’ve seen the bottom of the uranium market, and the negative sentiment that has followed this resource around despite strong fundamentals, is starting to change.

Billionaire investors sense it, and they’re always the first to anticipate change and take advantage of the rally before it becomes a reality. The turning point is where all the money is made, and there are plenty of indications that the uranium recovery is already underway.

4 Ways Latin America Can Achieve Energy Success

The rapidly shifting and challenging environment for the energy sector in Latin America offers an unprecedented opportunity for the region to rethink how it can better coordinate its energy sector and look toward building a comprehensive, integrated energy matrix. On July 1, all eyes will be on the leaders of Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru – the founding member states of the Pacific Alliance – to see how the ambitious goal of energy integration can be advanced on the sidelines of the 11th annual Summit.

With 42 observer countries from South Korea to Sweden signed up and two—Costa Rica and Panama—pending ascension, the grouping has become a hot commodity. That is partly due to an outstanding record of achievement: the alliance has already integrated four national stock markets, erased a vast range of tariffs, introduced visa-free travel, and organized joint international trade missions.

EU Energy: Only Adversaries To Choose From

Currently, less than half of the EU’s gas demand is met by domestic production. The rest is imported, mainly from Norway (36 percent), Russia (41 percent) and Algeria (10 percent). In recent years, LNG, or liquefied natural gas, has accounted for around 10 percent of the imports, with most of them coming from Qatar, Algeria, and Nigeria.

Although there are ISIS groupings in Algeria, the gas installations seem now secured. The last major attack on a gas facility in Algeria happened in 2013; 132 foreign nationals were taken hostage. The inevitable European military intervention in Libya will force Jihadists to move to Algeria and Niger. In Algeria, they will endanger gas installations and in Niger, they pose a risk to Areva’s Uranium mine in Arlit. Arlit provides a big chunk of uranium for France’s nuclear plants, which produce 75 percent of French electricity.

OPEC Is Dead, What’s Next?

OPEC is dead, Rosneft’s head Igor Sechin has told Reuters. In a fine example of stating the obvious – at least to those who have been keeping an eye on the energy industry – and putting it in context, the chief of Russia’s largest oil company welcomed an era where the oil market will be driven by “finance, technology and regulation.”

Can Scotland Save Its Oil Industry?

The Scottish city of Aberdeen is built upon the successes of the oil and gas industry. A walk round the city centre reveals the level of investment, with every street festooned with luxury hotels, classy restaurants, and even a golf course, courtesy of Donald Trump.

Recently, however, there has been an increasing sense of uncertainty in ‘the granite city’. At the start of the year, it was reported that the price of crude had slumped to a twelve-year low with the likes of Shell warning of a 50 percent cut in profits. Across the city, oil workers have been facing redundancy from a variety of companies including Petrofac, Gulfmark, ConocoPhillips and Sparrows.

TURKMENISTAN: THE DIVERSIFICATION OF GAS EXPORT MARKET

Among the Central Asian countries, Turkmenistan has the largest natural gas reserves and the world’s sixth largest reserves that amount 13,7 tcm. In 2015, Turkmenistan expects a total 48 bcm of natural gas exports comparing to 2014 figures of 45,1 bcm. At the same time, the country forecasted a 9 percent increase in natural gas production to 83,8 bcm in 2015. That means that Turkmenistan would have 35,8 bcm of natural gas for local consumption. That amount of gas might be too high for Turkmenistan’s domestic consumption, because the country burned roughly 22,3 bcm in 2013.Therefore, the margin between the production, consumption and export demonstrates that Turkmenistan has a significant potential to increase the export of its energy source.

IEA: No Oil Price Rally In The Short Term

It is very hard to see how oil prices can rise significantly in the short term.” For oil prices, the “short term risk to the downside has increased.”

Those were the conclusions from the IEA’s February Oil Market Report. On the heels of the plunge in oil prices to $26 per barrel, the IEA sounded a lot more somber since it last issued its monthly assessment.

The World Is Not Running Out Of Storage Space For Oil

The IEA struck a dour tone on the state of the global economy in 2016 in its latest monthly Oil Market Report, and even included a stark warning that the markets could “drown in over-supply” because of rising storage levels around the world.

Oil analysts have closely watched storage levels as an important barometer of where the markets were heading. The thinking was that inventories would rise as the supply overhang persisted, but storage facilities would then drawdown relatively quickly as production slowed. But in early 2015 a funny thing happened: Inventory levels surged to their highest levels in 80 years in the U.S., pushing oil prices down into the $40s per barrel.

East Africa’s pipeline politics in 2016

East Africa’s LAPSSET project remains at the volatile nexus of political and commercial dynamics with its short to medium term success increasingly unlikely.

East Africa’s aspirations for economic integration were intended to be catalysed through Kenya’s flagship LAPSSET project; however, it continues to face serious obstacles. The ‘mega-project’ is designed to serve as a regional transport corridor – improving trade between Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan (excluding Tanzania) – complemented by a pipeline network which would improve its feasibility.

How Low Oil Prices Are Transforming Global Politics In Startling Ways

As 2015 drew to a close, many in the global energy industry were praying that the price of oil would bounce back from the abyss, restoring the petroleum-centric world of the past half-century. All evidence, however, points to a continuing depression in oil prices in 2016 -- one that may, in fact, stretch into the 2020s and beyond. Given the centrality of oil (and oil revenues) in the global power equation, this is bound to translate into a profound shakeup in the political order, with petroleum-producing states from Saudi Arabia to Russia losing both prominence and geopolitical clout.

Asian Shipbuilders Brace For Rough Times As Offshore Sector Wavers

The New Year is setting off on a dour note for energy investors of all stripes, but among those who should be the most concerned are investors in the offshore sector.

The offshore industry is beyond awful at this point. Offshore drilling is one of the most complex and capital intensive forms of E&P, and with every oil company in the world from Exxon to Mom & Pop operators looking to cut back, demand for offshore rig services is on life support. That reality is obvious looking at the abysmal performance of the world’s biggest ship builders which happen to be a trio of Korean companies.

THE EU ENERGY UNION: MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS?

In a new CER policy brief, 'The EU Energy Union: More than the sum of its parts?' Dieter Helm 

looks at how an Energy Union built around EU-wide gas and electricity networks will help 

produce cheaper, greener and more secure energy for Europe

OPEC Expects U.S. Oil Production To Rise In 2016… Really?

The OPEC 2015 World Oil Outlook came out a few days ago. They basically produce two outlooks, a medium term outlook to 2020 and a long term outlook to 2040. I found their medium term outlook pessimistic in some cases too optimistic in others. But I found their long term outlook to be wildly optimistic… in most cases.

In all cases below I chart crude when it is available and “liquids” only when no other option is available. The data is in million barrels per day.

How clean is clean coal?

The coal industry argues that more efficient and less polluting ‘advanced coal’ will help reduce carbon emissions and other pollution. What we can’t forget, ahead of next week's World Coal Association meeting and OECD talks on coal policy, is that there are cheaper and cleaner options.

Burning coal generates about 40% of fossil fuel emissions. Current G7 and Chinese plants, alongside a dramatic expansion of coal power planned in the developing world, stand to blow our carbon budget.

Political Climate Shifting Against The Oil And Gas Industry

Oil and gas companies have had a tough time over the past year trying to weather the storm of falling oil prices. But the political and financial winds are moving in the wrong direction for the industry, raising more “above ground” problems at a time that they can ill-afford it.

Drilling oil and gas wells requires a lot of money. For companies that have seen their revenues vanish because of collapsing oil prices, access to credit is obviously critically important. But U.S. financial regulators are growing concerned about a pile of energy debt that is deteriorating in quality. A reportfrom the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve singled out the oil and gas sector when it concluded that credit risk was rising across the United States.