Tue Dec 1, 2015 | 3:37 PM EST
A view shows the company logo of Gazprom company installed on the roof of its office building in Moscow, August 10, 2015.
Reuters/Maxim Shemetov
Exclusive: Russia may freeze Turkish Stream gas...X
By Denis Pinchuk and Olesya Astakhova
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia may freeze work on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project for several years in retaliation against Ankara for the shooting down of a Russian air force jet, two sources at Russian gas giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM) told Reuters.
The Kremlin has imposed trade sanctions on Turkey over last week's jet incident although so far the measures have not affected the Russian energy exports to Turkey that are the core of their economic relationship.
Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said on Tuesday that no decisions had been made on the project and on a nuclear power station that Russia is building in Turkey.
Freezing work on the pipeline - intended to pump Russian gas, via Turkey, into southeastern Europe while bypassing Ukraine - would have a more symbolic than practical effect because the project is already beset by delays and doubts over its viability.
Any freeze would also not affect another Russian project to boost gas exports to the north of Europe. Gazprom is going ahead with plans to expand the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany despite resistance from several ex-communist states in eastern Europe.
Gazprom sources said no decision had been taken inside the company about changes to the Turkish Stream schedule in response to the row with Ankara, but added that they were awaiting instructions from President Vladimir Putin.
"We're expecting that the head of state, in all likelihood, could declare a freezing of Turkish Stream, or at least some kind of timeout should be announced," said one Gazprom source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A second source in Gazprom, who also did not want to be identified, said: "We are still hoping that Turkish Stream will be pushed back by a few years, rather than completely canceled."
Ulyukayev said last month that Turkish Stream could be among the projects affected by sanctions against Turkey, but he did not specify how. On Tuesday he left open the future of the pipeline and nuclear power station.
"There have been no decisions at this stage on suspending, freezing or ending financing for these projects," he told reporters in Brussels. "We are working on the assumptions that they will be carried out as they were agreed."
Gazprom is pursuing a strategy of diversifying the routes by which it supplies gas to Europe - its biggest export market - so that less passes through Ukraine.
In the past, rows between Moscow and Kiev have disrupted transit flows through Ukraine to the European Union. Russia's annexation of Crimea last year and a rebellion by pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine have made the relations more fraught, and added urgency to the search for an alternative.
The project is to involve, initially, building a new gas pipeline under the Black Sea to Turkey, and in subsequent phases the construction of a further line from Turkey to Greece, and then overland into southeastern Europe.
Even before the row with Ankara, the project had been delayed and reduced in scale, leading some industry insiders to doubt if it would ever happen. In October, the completion date for the first phase was pushed back from 2016 to 2017.
Russia abandoned a previous attempt to build a new route to southern Europe after Bulgaria, where the pipeline was to have made landfall, pulled out under pressure from Brussels.
NORTHERN PROJECT
In September, a group of European companies signed an agreement with Gazprom to expand its Nord Stream pipeline so that it can deliver increased volumes directly from Russia to Germany, also without pumping them through Ukraine.
Gazprom, E.ON EON.UL, BASF (BASFn.DE)/Wintershall WINT.UL, OMV (OMVV.VI), ENGIE (ENGIE.PA) and Royal Dutch Shell form the new consortium for the project, which is called Nord Stream II and aims to double the route's annual capacity to about 100 billion cubic meters of gas.
The new pipelines are due to start transporting gas by the end of 2019, according to the consortium.
The plan has met opposition from the U.S. government and some eastern European countries, which say it allows the Kremlin to squeeze Ukraine out from its role as a transit country.
The pro-Western government in Kiev, in power since street protests overthrew a Moscow-friendly president last year, earns significant revenues from transit fees.
Ten EU countries have written a letter to the European Commission saying that Nord Stream II runs counter to the bloc's interests.
Polish Minister for Maritime Affairs Marek Grobarczyk told Reuters last week the project would harm energy security by deepening dependence on Russian gas.
"There is a broad agreement within EU countries ... that building Nord Stream II stands against the idea of diversification and the idea of the internal market and would lead to an increase of energy supplies from one direction and one supplier," Grobarczyk said.
Hungary, a country which backed the aborted South Stream project, has accused the EU of exercising double standards over which pipeline routes it supports and which it opposes.
"They complained about South Stream because it would have bypassed Ukraine. Does Nord Stream II traverse Ukraine?", Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Nov. 20. "Interestingly, South Stream was problematic, while Nord Stream is not."
(Additional reporting by Pawel Sobczak and Anna Koper in WARSAW, Marton Dunai in BUDAPEST, Humeyra Pamuk in ISTANBUL; Writing by Christian Lowe and Jack Stubbs; Editing by Andrew Osborn and David Stamp)
Showing posts with label Gazprom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gazprom. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 01, 2015
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Iran unveils upgraded model for oil contracts
Associated Press
Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press
Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh, center, Managing Director of National Iranian Oil Company, Roknoddin Javadi, right, head of parliament's energy committee Ali Marvi, left, and participants listen to Iran's national anthem during opening ceremony of Iran Petroleum Contracts Conference in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Nov. 28, 2015. Iran has unveiled a new model of oil contracts aimed at attracting foreign investment once sanctions are lifted under a landmark nuclear deal reached earlier this year. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
syndication.ap.org
Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh, center, Managing Director of National Iranian Oil Company, Roknoddin Javadi, right, head of parliament's energy committee Ali Marvi, left, and participants listen to Iran's national anthem during opening ceremony of Iran Petroleum Contracts Conference in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Nov. 28, 2015. Iran has unveiled a new model of oil contracts aimed at attracting foreign investment once sanctions are lifted under a landmark nuclear deal reached earlier this year. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran unveiled a new model of oil contracts Saturday aimed at attracting foreign investment once sanctions are lifted under a landmark nuclear deal reached earlier this year, and said U.S. companies would be welcome to participate.
The new Iran Petroleum Contract replaces a previous buyback model, in which contractors paid to develop and operate an oil field before turning it over to Iranian authorities.
Iran has sweetened the terms, hoping to bring in $30 billion in new investment. The new contracts last 15-20 years and allow for the full recovery of costs. The older contracts were shorter term, and investors complained of heavy risks and suffering losses.
Investors who produced more than planned amounts received no compensation for the additional barrels. But under the new model, the more they produce, the more they will earn. Foreign investors will also have an option to extend contracts an additional five years, up to 25 years.
Some 50 upstream oil, gas and petrochemical projects are being introduced during a two-day conference in Tehran that began Saturday. Iran will pay foreign oil companies larger fees under the new contracts to provide greater incentives to investors.
Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told the conference that under the new contracts, foreign investors will be required to form a joint company with an Iranian partner to carry out exploration, development and production operations.
"To continue to play the role (as a major oil supplier), we hope to enjoy working with reputable international oil companies under a win-win situation," he told the conference.
Zanganeh welcomed U.S. investment in Iran's energy sector.
"We have no objection to and problem with the participation of American companies. The way for the presence of these companies in Iran's oil industry is open," he said.
Mahdi Hosseini, a senior official in charge of the new contracts, told the conference that the new model is an attempt to repair Iran's relations with the industrialized world.
Iran is hoping to attract over $150 billion in foreign investment in five years to rebuild its energy industry.
Iranian hardliners, however, condemned the new contracts as "unconstitutional", saying they will open the way for "infiltration" of the energy sector by Iran's enemies.
"Zanganeh today unveiled contracts that effectively transfers the rights of exploration, extraction, exploitation and sale Iran's oil to foreign companies for 25 years," the conservative news website, rejanews.com, said.
International sanctions on Iran's oil industry were tightened in 2012 over its controversial nuclear program. Western nations have long suspected Iran of secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, charges denied by Tehran, which insists the program is entirely peaceful.
Under the agreement reached in July with the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, Iran will curb its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
Oil Ministry officials said 137 foreign companies attended Saturday's conference, including Repsol, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Technip, Schlumberger, Eni, Enel, Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom, Inpex, Statoil and Daewoo.
Iran, an OPEC member, currently exports 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per day and hopes to get back to its pre-sanctions level of 2.2 million, last reached in 2012. Iran's total production now stands at 3.1 million barrels per day. Iran is hoping to boost oil production to 5.7 million barrels a day by 2021.
Zanganeh said last week that Iran will export an additional 500,000 barrels of oil a day after sanctions are lifted — likely in early 2016 — to reclaim its market share despite low prices. Iran plans to begin exporting an additional 500,000 barrels of oil a day six months later in order to double its crude exports.
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Fri Nov 20, 2015 | 9:56 AM EST
India's Petronet near to winning better gas terms from Qatar-sources
India's Petronet near to winning better gas terms...X
By Oleg Vukmanovic and Nidhi Verma
MILAN/NEW DELHI Nov 20 (Reuters) - India's biggest gas importer Petronet LNG is close to renegotiating a major deal with its Qatari supplier Rasgas, lowering the cost of gas shipments and avoiding a $1.5 billion penalty fee for lifting less gas than agreed, two sources said.
The renegotiation is another sign of how falling oil prices and a global gas glut are bringing producing giants such as Qatar to the negotiating table.
Petronet, which has a 25-year contract with Rasgas to annually buy 7.5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has reduced purchases by about a third this year due to high prices -- even though it is only allowed to take 10 percent less, making it liable for a $1.5 billion penalty.
Petronet and Rasgas opened renegotiation proceedings during Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani's visit to New Delhi in March.
If India manages to renegotiate a deal with Qatar it would be Prime Minister Narendra Modi's biggest diplomatic win in the energy sector since coming to power last year. Indian oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan reinforced the need to renegotiate prices and quantity under the long term deal with Qatar during his visit to Doha this month.
According to the sources the two firms are exploring the possibility of altering the contract's pricing formula, in which the LNG is valued based on a 60-month average of a basket of Japanese crude oil prices.
Instead, a 3-month average of Brent crude is being considered, which would be a major coup for Petronet by lowering its LNG costs in line with sharply lower crude oil prices.
Petronet currently pays about $12-$13 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) for Qatari LNG under a deal that began in 2004, compared with around $7-$8 per mmBtu for LNG in the spot market.
Petronet has been increasingly substituting costly Qatari LNG with spot shipments. But the proposed revision should allow it to step up Qatari imports as prices fall.
Under the new deal, Rasgas will also grant relief to Petronet from paying a $1.5 billion penalty on the condition that the Indian firm lifts full volumes in subsequent years, said one of the sources.
Rasgas was not immediately available for comment, while Petronet LNG's head of finance R. K. Garg did not respond to a request for comment. (Editing by William Hardy)
Thursday, July 17, 2014
U.S. hits oil giant Rosneft, other firms with toughest Russia sanctions
U.S. hits oil giant Rosneft, other firms with toughest Russia sanctions
Wed, Jul 16 23:13 PM EDT
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By Anna Yukhananov and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama imposed the biggest package of U.S. economic sanctions yet on Russia on Wednesday, hitting Russia's largest oil producer Rosneft and other energy, financial and defense firms, with what he called significant but targeted penalties.
Obama's latest round of sanctions came after close consultations with European leaders, who announced a less-ambitious package. The ultimate impact of the U.S. sanctions likely depends on whether the European Union follows suit.
The extent of the sanctions against key parts of the Russian energy and financial industry, including Gazprombank, was intended to serve notice to Moscow that its refusal to curb violence in eastern Ukraine has consequences.
The targeted companies also include Russia's second-largest gas producer, Novatek, Vnesheconombank, or VEB, a state-owned bank that acts as payment agent for the Russian government, and eight arms firms.
The U.S. Treasury Department said the measures effectively closed medium- and long-term dollar funding to the two banks and energy companies. But the sanctions did not freeze those four companies' assets, or otherwise prohibit U.S. firms or companies from doing business with them.
It is the first time the United States has imposed such narrowly targeted measures as it seeks the maximum impact on Russia, a huge energy producer, while avoiding any immediate shock to global oil markets or U.S. and EU companies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking in Brasilia, said the sanctions would damage U.S. energy companies, and bring relations with Russia to a "dead end."
One analyst said the sanctions remained limited in their scope and were likely to prompt a "war of words" more than anything else.
"I think that the impact on oil sales will be negligible," said sanctions expert Douglas Jacobson, attorney at Jacobson Burton in Washington. "It is another classic shot across the bow and a message from the United States that sanctions can be ramped up."
Obama said Putin had so far failed to take steps needed to resolve the crisis peacefully.
"We have emphasized our preference to resolve this issue diplomatically, but that we have to see concrete actions and not just words that Russia, in fact, is committed to trying to end this conflict along the Russia- Ukraine border," he said.
Washington said on Wednesday that up to 12,000 Russian combat forces were back on the border with Ukraine and that weaponry was crossing over to pro-Russian separatists.
The increase in the Russian presence occurred several weeks after Moscow had drawn down its forces in the area to about 1,000 troops.
POSSIBLE FURTHER SANCTIONS
Obama said the United States could impose further sanctions if Russia did not take concrete steps to ease the conflict.
The United States has already imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russian and Ukrainian senior officials since the start of the violence, including Rosneft's chief executive, Igor Sechin. But the sanctions have had only a limited impact on the Russian energy industry, a cornerstone of the country's $2 trillion economy.
It is not yet clear how large an impact the new measures will have on Rosneft, which had sales of $40 billion in the first quarter, about 8.6 percent of Russia's gross domestic product, or the companies it does business with.
Sechin, who like Putin was speaking in Brasilia, said the sanctions would not affect Rosneft's current project with ExxonMobil, but would damage the shareholders of U.S. companies cooperating with Rosneft.
The new sanctions would not appear to prevent Rosneft from selling its oil, but may raise questions about the company’s more than $15 billion worth of oil-related finance arrangements with companies including BP, which now owns almost a fifth of Rosneft, and Glencore.
Morgan Stanley, which is selling the majority of its global physical oil trading operations to Rosneft, declined to comment.
The sanctions stopped short of targeting Russia's Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas producer and provider of much of Europe's energy supplies. Gazprombank is 36 percent-owned by Gazprom.
RUNNING OUT OF PATIENCE
"These sanctions are significant, but they are also targeted, designed to have the maximum impact on Russia while limiting any spillover effects on American companies or those of our allies," Obama told reporters.
The new measures were announced on the same day that EU leaders met in Brussels and agreed to expand their own sanctions on Russia.
The new U.S. sanctions also include Feodosiya Enterprises, a shipping facility in Crimea, and senior Russian officials, several of whom had already been targeted by the European Union.
The affected senior officials included the deputy head of the State Duma, or parliament, the minister of the Crimea, a commander of the Russian intelligence agency FSB, and a Ukrainian separatist leader.
Obama in recent weeks has repeatedly threatened new sanctions, and appears to have run out of patience as fighting continued to rage in eastern Ukraine.
The new sanctions were unlikely to please Republican lawmakers, many of whom have been calling for the imposition of sanctions on entire Russian industries, rather than specific companies, as the best way to control Putin.
Republican lawmakers said they welcomed the additional sanctions but that Obama should go further. Several lawmakers, Republicans in particular, have called for broader sectoral sanctions targeting important Russian industries like energy and banking.
"Until now, the administration's response to Putin’s aggression has given him little reason to change his behavior. Continuing to go after the Russian economy is the way to send the most effective message," Dan Coats, an Indiana Republican, said.
For more details on the sanctions, see http://1.usa.gov/1kx0sxT.
(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Patricia Zengerle and Phil Stewart in Washington, Adrian Croft in Brussels and Josephine Mason, Edward McAllister, and Jonathan Leff in New York; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Monday, June 16, 2014
Gazprom puts Ukraine on gas prepayment plan after ‘chronic’ failure to pay debt
Ukraine says it agrees on interim gas price with Russia
Sat, Oct 18 17:17 PM EDT
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KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's and Russia's leaders have reached a preliminary agreement on a price for gas supplies this winter but Kiev may need international help to pay, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Saturday.
Poroshenko met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Milan on Friday to discuss the conflict in Ukraine's eastern regions, where pro-Russian separatists are fighting Kiev government forces.
Russia cut off gas supply to Ukraine in mid-June following more than two years of dispute on the price. Russia said Ukraine had to pay off large debts for previously-supplied gas before it would resume supply.
"(We) reached an agreement," Poroshenko said in an interview with Ukrainian TV channels. "Until March 31 we will fix the price at $385."
An agreement signed in 2009 by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko called on Ukraine to pay $485 per 1,000 cubic meters for Russian gas. Kiev is contesting the contract in a Stockholm arbitration court.
Poroshenko said that state-run energy company Naftogaz was short of funds to pay for Russian gas partly because of debts created by consumers in eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
"We must solve the question of how we cover the deficit of funds for Naftogaz for gas purchases," Poroshenko said.
"We have several different options (including) the International Monetary Fund."
He said a mission of the IMF is due to arrive in Kiev in mid-November to discuss amendments to the current loan program for Ukraine. Poroshenko said the next round of gas talks was likely to take place on Oct. 21 in Brussels.
(Writing by Pavel Polityuk; editing by Andrew Roche)
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Published time: June 16, 2014 06:10
Edited time: June 16, 2014 09:15
AFP Photo / Alexander Zobin
Ukraine turmoil
Tags
Conflict, Gas, Russia, Ukraine
After failing to pay its gas bill, Ukraine now has to pay in advance for any natural gas from Russia, Gazprom said on Monday. Both companies have filed lawsuits against each other at the Stockholm Arbitration Court
“This decision was taken due to systematic failure of Naftogaz Ukraine to pay. The debt of the company for Russian gas stands at $4.458 billion, including $1.451 billion for November and December 2013, and $3.007 billion for April-May 2014,” Gazprom said in a statement posted on their website.
“They’ve paid zero. Correspondingly we deliver zero,” Sergey Kupriyanov, a Gazprom spokesperson said in a press conference following the announcement.Reuters reports that gas supplies to Ukraine were restricted off as soon as the deadline at 10:00am in Moscow passed. Both companies have announced they are opening lawsuits with the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce Arbitration. Naftogaz, Ukraine’s oil and gas utility, is seeking a $6 billion sum for 'unfair' gas prices and asking the court to review prices that were agreed on in 2010 under then Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Gazprom announced wants to recover the $4.5 billion worth of debt and also seek compensation for Ukraine's failure to import the agreed upon amount of natural gas under their "take or pay" contract with Gazprom over the past two years. The penalty in accordance with the contract could be around $18 billion. Gunther Oettinger, who has been the main broker between the three-way talks between Russia, Ukraine, and the EU, has urged Russia to ‘reconsider’ its decision to place Ukraine on a prepayment gas plan. "Further invitations for trilateral talks in June are foreseen," EU energy minister Gunther Oettinger said at a news conference in Vienna. Oettinger has been the main broker of the three-way talks between Russia, Ukraine, and the EU, all of which have ended in deadlock. Yury Prodan, Ukraine's energy minister, has stressed that taking the case to Stockholm is the only way to settle the matter. Kiev was also late in payments in the winters of 2006 and 2009. Both periods lasted about three weeks, during which Kiev attempted to siphon off supplies for themselves, which left millions of European homes without heat. Further actions will be taken after Gazprom head meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin today, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told reporters at the World Petroleum Congress, being held in Moscow June 15-19. Russia’s energy minister Aleksander Novak and Gazprom head Aleksey Miller will hold a press conference later this afternoon. Ukraine has accumulated a multi-billion dollar debt for natural gas supplied by Russia and is unwilling to pay. It calls the 10-year gas contract that former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko signed with Russia back in 2009 unacceptable and demands that Russia lower the price. The sudden halt shot up natural gas prices in Europe, a trend many analysts will repeat itself this time around. Moscow was willing to offer a discount and even recalculate the debt Ukraine has accumulated since April to account for it, but Kiev rejected the offer, saying it was not good enough. Gazprom considers Ukraine’s position a form of blackmail. After negotiations on Sunday, Gazprom announced that their final pricing offer was $385 per 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas, which Ukraine still rejected. Price disputes between the two neighbors intensified after a government coup followed by violence in Ukraine, when the price of gas exports from Moscow to Kiev shot up from $268.50 to $485.00. Europe imports a third of its natural gas from Russia, and nearly half of that is delivered via Ukraine. In 2012, over 84 billion cubic meters of gas traveled from Russia to Europe through Ukraine. Under the current contract, Ukraine is required to import 40 billion cubic meters of gas. Ukraine’s energy minister said on Friday that Ukraine has more than 15 billion cubic meters of Russian gas in storage. ========================== Russia cuts off gas to Ukraine as Kiev orders border secured Mon, Jun 16 15:37 PM EDT image 1 of 4 By Natalia Zinets and Vladimir Soldatkin KIEV/GORKI Russia (Reuters) - Russia cut off gas to Ukraine on Monday in a dispute over unpaid bills that could disrupt supplies to the rest of Europe and set back hopes for peace between the former Soviet neighbours. After the weekend loss of 49 troops when pro-Russian rebels shot down a military transport plane, Ukraine's new president ordered his forces to retake full control of their border with Russia - saying this could then pave the way for negotiations. Calling time on weeks of wrangling in talks over natural gas supplies, Russia said Kiev had missed a Monday morning deadline to repay $1.95 billion owed for previous purchases and announced Ukraine would now only get gas it has paid for in advance. At the same time, Moscow insisted that Ukraine must let Russian gas flow across the country through international pipelines to Russia's clients in the European Union - noting a temptation for Kiev to tap into those supplies in transit. Kiev and Moscow blamed each other for the failure to agree on the price of future gas deliveries and refused to abandon well established positions: Russia offering a discount and Ukraine rejecting that as a tool for political manipulation. The talks are bound up with the worst crisis between Russia and Ukraine since the Soviet Union collapsed - a crisis that has brought Western sanctions on Moscow, the Russian annexation of Crimea and Cold War-style sabre-rattling along the borders. Western-backed Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, elected last month to replace the Kremlin-friendly leader ousted in February, said on Monday he wanted troops to regain full control of the border with Russia this week. After that, there could be a ceasefire and efforts to come up with a peace plan. "The ceasefire will be declared as soon as the border is secure," Poroshenko told his security chiefs. "Declaring a ceasefire while the border is open would be irresponsible." His remarks underlined his concern that Russia is supporting the rebels by sending in tanks, guns and men. Hopes of a lowering of tension had already been dented before the gas talks failed by the downing of the plane near the eastern frontier, an attack on Russia's embassy in Kiev and new accusations from NATO that Russia is arming the Ukrainian rebels. All that sent Russian financial markets lower on Monday and helped oil and gas prices climb in Europe that were already firm on fears of supply disruption due to violence in Iraq. "Thanks to the unconstructive position of the Ukrainian government, today a prepayment system was introduced," Alexei Miller, the chief executive of Russian state exporter Gazprom, told Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev during a meeting at a government residence at Gorki, outside Moscow. He said Ukraine had "adopted a position that can only be called blackmail", adding: "They wanted an ultra-low price." At a news conference, he said it would no longer be enough for Kiev to pay part of its debt for supply to resume. That would now happen only once Ukraine paid off all the almost $4.5 billion and paid up-front for a month's deliveries, he said. "NOT ABOUT GAS" Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk accused Russia of deliberately blocking a deal to cause Kiev supply problems next winter, when temperatures plunge and heating needs increase. "But it is not about gas. It is a general Russian plan to destroy Ukraine," Yatseniuk said. "It is yet another step against the Ukrainian state and against Ukrainian independence."
Medvedev said some of Kiev's ruling elite were not up to the job, echoing outrage over Ukraine's acting foreign minister using a coarse anatomical expression to describe President Vladimir Putin during the weekend embassy protest in Kiev. "You can see this in many situations; from the paranoid behaviour of the acting foreign minister at the Russian embassy in Kiev to the failure of the prime minister of Ukraine to agree on gas on the basis of a discounted price," he said on Facebook.SUPPLIES IN STORAGE A source at Gazprom said supplies to Ukraine had been reduced as soon as the deadline passed and Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuri Prodan said the country was receiving no gas. Ukraine has at least 12 billion cubic metres of gas in storage, enough to meet its and the EU's needs over the summer. A long-term reduction of supply could hit EU consumers, which get about a third of their gas needs from Russia, around half of it through pipelines that cross Ukraine. Earlier price disputes led to "gas wars" in 2006 and 2009, and Russian accusations Ukraine stole gas destined for the rest of Europe. Gazprom's Miller said Russia would provide Ukraine with the volumes necessary to cover EU demand, but implied that Kiev may take some of those supplies for their own use - a potential shortfall Moscow could not be expected to cover. "Regarding transit risks, they exist and they are not insignificant," Miller said of supplies reaching the EU. The bloc's energy commissioner, Guenther Oettinger, who has been brokering the gas talks, said in Vienna that the EU should top up its storage or could face problems in winter. He urged Russia to reconsider a compromise and held out the prospect of new talks before officials break for summer. But with both sides filing lawsuits at the Stockholm international commercial arbitration court to try to recover billions each says they are owed, any quick agreement seems a way off. SHARES FALL Russian shares fell on the talks' collapse. The dollar-denominated RTS index lost 1.25 percent and the rouble-based MICEX 0.48 percent. Prices for Brent crude were up about 50 cents near $113 a barrel. Western countries saw the talks as a gauge of Putin's willingness to compromise and had been looking for signs that he was trying to avert the threat of the West adding to sanctions on Moscow imposed after Russia seized Crimea three months ago. That move came after Moscow-leaning Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich was ousted by street protests in February and pro-Western leaders took over power in Kiev. Russia denounced that as a Western-backed fascist coup. The gas talks broke down with the sides unable to reach agreement on price and on changes to a 2009 contract that had locked Ukraine into paying the highest price in Europe. Kiev wants to pay $268.50 per 1,000 cubic metres of gas - the price it had been offered when Yanukovich was in power. But, in a compromise last week, it said it would agree to pay $326 for an interim period until a lasting deal was reached. Moscow had sought to keep the price at the 2009 contract level of $485 per 1,000 cubic metres, but had offered to waive an export duty, bringing down prices by about a fifth to $385, broadly in line with what Russia charges other European states. Kiev says that waiving the duty rather than agreeing a new contract price means Moscow could use the threat of cancelling the waiver to keep Ukraine under its thumb. Oettinger said Moscow had declined a compromise under which Kiev would pay $1 billion immediately and then make monthly repayments to Gazprom. It would also pay $385 per 1,000 cubic metres in winter and about $300 in the summer. The U.S. State Department said the EU had presented a "fair and reasonable" compromise to resolve the gas dispute, and talks should be resumed. (Additional reporting by Timothy Heritage in Kiev, Alexei Anishchuk, Maria Kiselova and; Denis Pinchuk in Moscow, Michael Shields in Vienna, Jan Lopatka in Bratislava and Henning; Gloystein in London; Writing by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Gazprom CEO says China gas deal will affect European market
Gazprom CEO says China gas deal will affect European market
Fri, May 23 15:03 PM EDT
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Russia's landmark deal to supply natural gas to China will affect prices in Europe and have an impact on international liquefied natural gas projects, the chief executive of state-run Gazprom said on Friday.
Russia and China signed a 30-year gas supply contract on Wednesday worth a total of more than $400 billion, during a visit by President Vladimir Putin to Shanghai.
"Literally a day ago a really historical event took place, an epoch-making event. We, Russia and Gazprom, have discovered the Asian gas market for ourselves," Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller said at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
"It can be assumed that the signing of the contract will affect gas prices on the European market," he said without giving any details.
Miller added that the deal will also have an impact on LNG projects in eastern Africa, Australia and western Canada.
Fitch Ratings said on Thursday that the deal "sets a new benchmark for what China is willing to pay for natural gas over longer-term contracts".
The deal opens up a huge new market for Gazprom, which generates around 80 percent of its revenue from Europe, where demand is stagnating and profits are falling.
"This is the contract, which will influence the whole gas market," Miller said.
Neither side disclosed the price in the Russia-China contract, but industry sources said it was between $350 and $380 per 1,000 cubic meters, similar to what most European utilities pay under discounted long-term contracts signed in the last two years.
Gazprom has yet to build a pipeline to carry 38 billion cubic meters of gas annually to China from 2018. Russia and China have agreed on a $25 billion prepayment under a supply deal, Alexander Medvedev, chief executive of Gazprom Export, said on Friday.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Katya Golubkova and Jane Baird)
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Resolution 1541, Decolonization, Self-Determination (If Kosovo can, so can Crimea)
Alan Fairhurst
The right of nations to self-determination (from German: Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker), or in short form, the right to self-determination is the cardinal principle in modern international law (jus cogens), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter’s norms. It states that nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or interference which can be traced back to the Atlantic Charter, signed on 14 August 1941, by Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, and Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who pledged The Eight Principal points of the Charter.
The principle does not state how the decision is to be made, or what the outcome should be, whether it be independence, federation, protection, some form of autonomy or even full assimilation. Neither does it state what the delimitation between nations should be — or even what constitutes a nation. In fact, there are conflicting definitions and legal criteria for determining which groups may legitimately claim the right to self-determination.
On 14 December 1960, the United Nations General Assembly adopted United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514 under titled Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples provided for the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples in providing an inevitable legal linkage between self-determination and its goal of decolonisation, and a postulated new international law-based right of freedom also in economic self-determination. In Article 5 states: Immediate steps shall be taken in Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories, or all other territories which have not yet attained independence, to transfer all powers to the peoples of those territories, without any conditions or reservations, in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire, without any distinction as to race, creed or colour, in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and freedom, moreover on 15 December 1960 the United Nations General Assembly adopted United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1541 under titled Principles which should guide members in determining whether or nor an obligation exists to transmit the information called for under Article 73e of the United Nations Charter in Article 3 provided that [i]nadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence. To monitor the implementation of Resolution 1514 in 1961 the General Assembly created the Special Committee referred to popularly as the Special Committee on Decolonization to ensure decolonization complete compliance with the principle of self-determination in General Assembly Resolution 1541, 12 Principle of the Annex defining free association with an independent State, integration into an independent State, or independence as the three legitimate options of full self-government compliance with the principle of self-determination.
"National aspirations must be respected; people may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. Self determination is not a mere phrase; it is an imperative principle of action. . . . "
—Woodrow Wilson with his famous self-determination speech on 11 February 1918 after he announced his Fourteen Points on 8 January 1918.
Crimea referendum opponents manipulate detached norms of intl law – Churkin
Published time: March 13, 2014 22:58
Edited time: March 14, 2014 03:16 Get short URL
Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin addresses the United Nations Security Council during a meeting of the Council on the crisis in Ukraine, at U.N. Headquarters in New York, March 13, 2014. (Reuters/Mike Segar)
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Human rights, Meeting, Opposition, Politics, Security, UN, Ukraine Addressing the chorus of criticism at the UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine, Moscow’s ambassador has reconfirmed that Russia does not want any escalation of the Ukraine crisis and is not interfering with the upcoming referendum in Crimea.
“Russia does not want war and neither do the Russians, and I'm convinced the Ukrainians don't want that either,” ambassador Vitaly Churkin told an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Thursday. “We don’t see any basis to consider the issue in such terms.”
It is unacceptable to reject Crimea’s right for self-determination using a smokescreen of protecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity, without even trying to balance these two principles, Churkin told the council.
“Some dispute the legality of such a referendum, but it is unacceptable to manipulate individual principles and norms of international law, randomly pulling them out of context not only of the international law, but the specific political circumstances and historical aspects,” Churkin said.
In each case, the envoy believes, one should “balance between the principles of territorial integrity and the right for self-determination.”
“It is clear that the implementation of the right of self-determination in the form of separation from the existing state is an extraordinary measure. In Crimea such a case apparently arose as a result of a legal vacuum, which emerged as a result of unconstitutional, violent coup d'état carried out in Kiev by radical nationalists, as well as direct threats by the latter to impose their order on the whole territory of Ukraine.”
Video: /files/news/23/91/e0/00/churkin-full-unsc-web_1416352.mp4
Churkin assured the international community that the Black Sea Fleet – the only Russian military force stationed in Crimea according to existing international agreements – does not and will not interfere with Sunday’s referendum on Crimean succession.
“In the conduct of the referendum, organized by the Crimeans, the Russian Black Sea Fleet does not interfere,” he said.
At the same time Churkin reminded about the urgent need to investigate the killings of protesters and security forces at Maidan square that brought new people to power in Kiev. Moscow keeps insisting on setting up a probe into these crimes, Churkin said.
“Acts of violence perpetrated in Kiev need a careful international investigation,” he said, warning that the “image presented by Kiev and western propaganda is completely reversed by the information the same provocateurs were firing at both the representatives of the security forces and protesters.”
“And, according to the latest published information, shooting came from the headquarters of the so-called ‘Maidan Commandant’, who now heads by the Security Council of Ukraine,” Russia's envoy said.
In general, the UN Security Council members all sides called to abstain from taking positions that could deteriorate the Ukraine crisis. Several member states including the US, Britain and France were critical of Russia’s “actions in Crimea,” while the US ambassador Samantha Power even called for a suspension of the “illegitimate referendum” due to “the background of foreign military intervention.”
Ukraine's coup-appointed prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk was also given the floor at the council meeting and used that chance to once again accuse Russia of “military aggression” in Crimea.
“This aggression has no reasons and no grounds,” Yatsenyuk said. “This is absolutely and entirely unacceptable in the 21st century, to resolve any kind of conflict with tanks, artillery and boots on the ground.”With Western media and the self-proclaimed government in Kiev ranting about the Russian invasion in Crimea, international journalists on the scene are struggling to find any evidence of these claims. The United States in the meantime has ratcheted up its rhetoric with threats of sanctions against Russia if a referendum in Crimea goes ahead on Sunday. US Secretary of State John Kerry told a congressional hearing on Thursday that he hoped to avoid such steps, which include sanctions, through discussions with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in London on Friday. "If there is no sign of any capacity to be able to move forward and resolve this issue there will be a very serious series of steps in Europe and here with respect to the options that are available to us," Kerry said. ==================== West prepares sanctions as Russia presses on with Crimea takeover Fri, Mar 14 19:20 PM EDT 1 of 22 By Andrew Osborn and Lina Kushch SEVASTOPOL/DONETSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - Dozens of Russians linked to Russia's gradual takeover of Crimea could face U.S. and EU travel bans and asset freezes on Monday, after six hours of crisis talks between Washington and Moscow ended with both sides still far apart. Moscow shipped more troops and armor into Crimea on Friday and repeated its threat to invade other parts of Ukraine in response to violence in Donetsk on Thursday night despite Western demands to pull back. EU diplomats will choose from a long list of 120-130 possible Russian targets for sanctions on Sunday, as pro-Moscow authorities who have taken power in Crimea hold a vote to join Russia in the worst East-West confrontation since the Cold War. Several diplomats dismissed a German newspaper report that said the list would include the heads of Russia's two biggest companies, energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russia would be guilty of a backdoor annexation of Crimea if its parliament ratified the Crimea referendum, which is taking place after an armed takeover of Crimea and gives voters no chance to say "no". He has warned Moscow that U.S. and EU sanctions could be imposed as soon as Monday, although U.S. officials said after Kerry's marathon meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in London on Friday the door was still open for more talks. Lavrov played down his own ministry's threats, saying Moscow had no plans to invade Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow groups have occupied some government buildings. But he said Russia would respect the referendum result. Preliminary partial results are expected late on Sunday, with final results on Tuesday. STOCK MARKET FALLS Russia's stock markets tumbled and the cost of insuring its debt soared on the last day of trading before the Crimea vote. Brent crude oil rose by more than $1 as traders worried the crisis was set to escalate. Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries have also plunged this week, leading some traders to speculate Russia has cut its dollar reserves to support the ruble and avoid any sanctions. An EU diplomat said he expected the final list of those who could be sanctioned on Monday to be between "tens and scores" of people from the list, which runs to five pages. Germany's Bild newspaper reported that Alexei Miller, boss of natural gas monopoly Gazprom, and Igor Sechin, head of Russia's biggest oil firm, Rosneft, would be among those targeted, along with senior ministers and Kremlin aides. Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the Bild report and European diplomats said the choice had not yet been made and was unlikely to include business leaders. "(Business interests) is not the target initially, the focus is on the political decision that has been taken to act in Crimea and destabilize Ukraine," said one diplomat involved in the negotiations. Rosneft spokesman Mikhail Leontyev said sanctions on his firm's boss would be "stupid, petty and obvious sabotage of themselves most of all. I think it will primarily affect Rosneft's business partners in the West in an extraordinary way." Gazprom and the Kremlin declined to comment. FELLOW CITIZENS A U.N. Security Council resolution drafted by the United States declaring that the referendum "can have no validity" will be put to a vote on Saturday. Russia is expected to veto it but Western diplomats hope China will isolate Moscow by abstaining. Kerry told Lavrov Russia should explain its intentions for the large number of Russian forces massing on the eastern border with Ukraine, where many ethnic Russians live, and in Crimea. The Russian Foreign Ministry, responding to the death of at least one protester in Ukraine's eastern city of Donetsk, repeated President Vladimir Putin's declaration of the right to invade to protect Russian citizens and "compatriots". "Russia is aware of its responsibility for the lives of compatriots and fellow citizens in Ukraine and reserves the right to take people under its protection," it said, alluding to what it says are threats from Ukraine's new pro-Western leaders. Ukrainian health authorities say one 22-year-old man was stabbed to death and at least 15 others were being treated in hospital after clashes in Donetsk, the mainly Russian-speaking home city of Ukraine's ousted President Viktor Yanukovich. Organizers of the anti-Moscow demonstration said the dead man was from their group and the new pro-Western governor of Donetsk said Russians were behind the clashes. Moscow denies that its forces are intervening in Crimea, an assertion Washington ridicules as "Putin's fiction". Journalists have seen Russian forces operating openly in their thousands over the past two weeks, driving in armored columns of vehicles with Russian license plates and identifying themselves to besieged Ukrainian troops as members of Russia's armed forces. A Reuters reporter watched a Russian warship unload trucks, troops and at least one armored personnel carrier at Kazachaya bay near Sevastopol on Friday morning. Trucks drove off a ramp from the Yamal 156, a large landing ship that can carry more than 300 troops and up to a dozen APCs. In nearby Simferopol, around 300 Tatars protested against the referendum. Tatars, a majority in Crimea until Soviet leader Josef Stalin deported them en masse for alleged collaboration with the Nazis in World War Two, are strongly anti-Russian. FACTS ON THE GROUND Russian troops seized the Black Sea peninsula two weeks ago as a pro-Moscow regional government took power there. The new regional authorities intend to secede from Ukraine and join Russia in a vote described in the West as illegal. Putin declared on March 1 that Russia had the right to invade its neighbor, a week after its ally Yanukovich fled the Ukrainian capital following three months of demonstrations that ended with about 100 people killed in the final days. The Defense Ministry said on Friday it would hold exercises with fighter jets and helicopters over the Mediterranean sea. On Thursday it announced artillery drills near Ukraine's border. U.S. and EU sanctions on Russian officials and other figures are now seen as inevitable. A formal EU decision to impose sanctions will be taken on Monday unless Moscow rapidly changes course. U.S. and European officials say the targets will not include Putin or Lavrov, and an east European diplomat said the EU might impose sanctions on one set of people on Monday, and add others on Wednesday and during an EU summit on Thursday and Friday. "It could start by sanctioning those directly involved with the situation in Crimea. Then if Russia doesn't respond, expand to include senior figures in the Russian Senate, and then ultimately expand to include very senior people," the diplomat said. Bild's list included Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, presidential administration chief Sergei Ivanov and the secretary of the National Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev. SHARES FALL, DEBT INSURANCE COSTS RISE Russia's MICEX stock index has lost more than 16 percent of its value in the two weeks since Putin declared his right to invade. The cost of insuring Russia's debt against default is now up by half since the crisis began. Although Russian public opinion, fed by overwhelmingly state-controlled media, is still solidly behind the plan to annex Crimea, Western countries believe sanctions could undermine support for Putin among the wealthy elite. Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told Russian media that the threat of Western sanctions was already imposing higher borrowing costs on Russian businesses and that further sanctions would push capital flight to $50 billion a quarter. Renaissance Capital estimated capital outflow in the first quarter would exceed $55 billion, compared with $63 billion for the whole of 2013. The ruble has declined only slightly despite the fall in share prices, held aloft by a central bank that raised its lending rates on March 3 and has been spending reserves to keep the currency from falling. (Writing by Peter Graff and Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Will Waterman, Giles Elgood and Sonya Hepinstall) ========================== Recent history teaches us that whenever western leaders and their elite media cheerleaders talk of an international “crisis” and warn that “something must be done” the best way of avoiding a real crisis is to do absolutely nothing. Op-Edge by Neil Clark Crimea – another artificially created crisis Neil Clark is a journalist, writer and broadcaster. His award winning blog can be found at www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. Follow him on Twitter Get short URL Published time: March 14, 2014 14:38 Pro-Russian supporters attend a rally in Simferopol, March 9, 2014.(Reuters / Vasily Fedosenko) Share on tumblrTags Crisis, Iran, Libya, Politics, Russia, Syria, UK, Ukraine Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that the Ukraine/Crimea crisis has been “created artificially for purely geopolitical reasons." And he’s right. It's important to understand that this is not a “one-off” but only the latest in a long line of international “crises” either deliberately hyped up or artificially created by the western powers to further their geopolitical interests. British Foreign Secretary William Hague has said that Crimea is the “the biggest crisis in Europe in the 21st century.” But it‘s not the first time leading western politicians have talked in such alarmist terms in recent years. Exactly 15 years ago, in March 1999, we had the Kosovo “crisis” – with western leaders claiming that unless NATO took urgent military action thousands of Kosovan Albanians would be killed by Serb forces, who we were told were engaged in a brutal genocidal war. British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons on March 23, 1999: “We must act to save thousands of innocent men, women and children from humanitarian catastrophe, from death, barbarism and ethnic cleansing from a brutal dictatorship.” But it was an artificially-created “crisis” as what was going on in Kosovo was a low-level conflict between Yugoslav forces and Kosovan Liberation Army fighters backed by the West. The KLA’s job was to carry out attacks on Yugoslav forces, provoke a violent response from Belgrade, which could then be used as a pretext for NATO intervention to destroy an independent, socialist country which had resisted globalization. A “crisis” had to be created in order to justify the NATO military action. Four years later, we had the Iraq WMD “crisis.” Something had to be done about Saddam's deadly weapons which threatened us all, western leaders told us. We couldn't wait for the team of UN weapons inspectors to finish their job.
“If we don't act now, then we will go back to what has happened before and then of course the whole thing begins again and he carries on developing these weapons and these are dangerous weapons, particularly if they fall into the hands of terrorists who we know want to use these weapons if they can get them,” Blair said.Protestors block a street with burning tyres in Libya's second city of Benghazi on February 26, 2014 after the killings of two policemen.(AFP Photo / Abdullah Doma) On April 28, 2003, when Saddam’s WMD hadn’t shown up, Blair said: “Before people crow about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.” Eleven years on, and we’re still waiting. Throughout the last decade we've also had the Iranian nuclear “crisis.” We were told repeatedly by the West’s elite that the Islamic Republic was developing nuclear weapons which posed a clear threat not just to the Middle East region but to the whole world. Dealing with the Iranian nuclear “threat’ was deemed to be our most urgent priority. In January 2011, British Defense Secretary Liam Fox warned that Iran could have nuclear weapons by the end of 2012. But 2013 dawned and Iran still didn’t have any nukes. Then there was the “crisis” in Libya in 2011. We were told Colonel Gaddafi's forces were massacring innocent people and were about to launch a genocidal attack on the civilians in Benghazi. Again, we had to deal with this urgent “crisis.” “We simply cannot stand back and let a dictator whose people have rejected him, kill his people indiscriminately,” declared British Prime Minister David Cameron, doing his best Tony Blair impression. “Confronted by this brutal repression and a looming humanitarian crisis, I ordered warships into the Mediterranean. European allies declared their willingness to commit resources to stop the killing,” said President Barack Obama on March 28, 2011. As in the case of the “crisis” in Kosovo and the “crisis” with Iraqi WMDs, the western response to the “crisis” in Libya was a military attack. In August 2013, another “crisis” – with Western claims that the Syrian government had launched a deadly chemical weapons attack against its own people. Again, we were told we had to act quickly and firmly to deal with the “crisis”. It was only the diplomacy of Russia and public opinion in western countries that prevented a US-led military attack against Syria. Now, in March 2014, the new “crisis” is Putin's “invasion” of Ukraine and the threat Russia poses to independent, “democratic” Ukraine. This, don’t forget is “the biggest crisis in Europe in the 21st century.” In fact, none of the above were real crises – including Crimea. There was no genocide in Kosovo. Iraq had no WMDs. Iran had no nuclear weapons program: it was a “Manufactured Crisis”, to use the title of investigate journalist Gareth Porter’s new book. Gaddafi's forces weren't massacring civilians in Libya – nor had Gaddafi threatened a massacre of civilians in Benghazi. What Libyan forces were doing was what Yugoslav forces were doing in 1999: i.e. fighting a war against western-backed insurgents. In Syria, the evidence – as well as logic – suggests it was the rebels, and not the government which launched the chemical weapons attack at Ghouta – in order to get a full-scale military intervention from the western powers. And there is no Russian “invasion” of Ukraine. A Russian flag blows inside the entrance of Crimea's regional parliament building in Simferopol on March 13, 2014.(AFP Photo / Filippo Monteforte ) But – and here's the most important point – the western responses to these artificially created “crises” did lead to real crises. The “crisis” of Kosovo was dealt with by a brutal 78-day bombardment of Yugoslavia, which wrecked the country's infrastructure, and which left thousands killed or injured, with NATO’s use of depleted uranium leading to a spike in cancer rates. As for human rights, they’ve suffered too. “Nowhere [in Europe] is there such a level of fear for so many minorities that they will be harassed or attacked, simply for who they are,” said a report on Kosovo by Minority Rights Group International in 2006. The WMD “crisis” of Iraq led to an illegal invasion which Iraq has not yet recovered from, or is likely to recover from for a very long time – with up to 1m killed and a country plagued by violent sectarian conflict. Last year was Iraq’s deadliest since 2008, with over 7,000 people killed, In 2002/3 neocons couldn’t stop talking about the Iraq WMD ‘crisis’ and how urgent action was needed; now, when there is a real crisis in the country, they are silent. The Iranian nuclear “crisis” led to draconian sanctions being posed on the country – which has led to real hardship for the ordinary people of Iran – (as reported on RT) and higher oil prices for Europe too, just what we didn’t need at a time of major recession. Millions have suffered needlessly due to steps taken to deal with a “crisis” which never existed in the first place. The Libyan “crisis” of 2011 led to a brutal NATO assault on the country which led to thousands of deaths, and now Libya, like Iraq, is a wrecked country, again plagued with conflict. Again, those who couldn’t stop talking about the “humanitarian crisis” in Libya in 2011, are strangely silent these days. The Syrian chemical weapons attack “crisis” almost led to the outbreak of a major regional war, and possibly World War Three, but in their obsession with toppling the Baathist government, still the West and its regional allies supports the violent rebels thereby prolonging the misery of war for millions of Syrians. Now the serial “crisis” creators are at it again, this time trying to convince us that a referendum in Crimea and the possibility of the Crimea where almost 60 percent of the population are ethnic Russians returning to Russia is a major “crisis”. And once again the steps that they are proposing – sanctions on Russia – would lead to more of a crisis than the “crisis” itself: they would be disastrous for western economies, especially those in Europe. At the same time that we’re expected to lose sleep over artificially created crises like Crimea crisis which affect the lives of millions of ordinary people in the West and elsewhere are ignored by western elites. Global warming. The record numbers of young people without jobs. The ever-widening gap between rich and poor. The rapid fall in living standards of ordinary people in the west. These are crises which proper democratic governments would be dealing with. Instead the western elite prefer to invent new ones. Recent history teaches us that whenever western leaders and their elite media cheerleaders talk of an international “crisis” and warn that “something must be done” the best way of avoiding a real crisis is to do absolutely nothing. Let’s concentrate on tackling the real crises like environmental destruction, poverty, inequality and unemployment and not be fooled by the artificial “crises” that the western elites want us to focus on. The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT. ====================================
Friday, November 09, 2012
Iraq: Exxon pulls out, Russia wants in
Thursday, January 26, 2012
BP and partners invest $35 bln in Azerbaijan
26 January 2012, 17:21 (GMT+04:00)
Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan. 26 / Trend E. Ismayilov /
The volume of investments made by BP and its partners in Azerbaijan amounted to $ 35 billion during its activity in the country, BP Azerbaijan company head Rashid Javanshir said during a ceremony of signing the agreement on the support with the National Olympic and National Paralympic Committees.
He said that the company has made a significant contribution to the development of oil and gas sector and the Azerbaijani economy over 20 years of activity in Azerbaijan.
The company plays an important role in the oil and gas sector in the country. It is the operator of the major international oil, gas and oil, gas transportation projects.
BP will continue its activity to develop the economy as a whole and oil and gas industry in particular in subsequent years, he said.
Do you have any feedback? Contact our journalist at agency@trend.az
================
Shah Deniz consortium may fall back on SEEP
26 January 2012, 10:31 (GMT+04:00)
Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan.26 / Trend A.Badalova /
The consortium of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas field development may fall back on the South-East Europe Pipeline (SEEP), if the pipeline partner is not chosen by late March, Reuters quotes BP Shah Deniz Development marketing manager Steve Garlick, as saying.
"If it can not choose a pipeline partner at the end of March, the group could fall back on its South-East Europe Pipeline to buy time to sort out any remaining issues", he said
SEEP, which was proposed by BP, envisages gas transportation through existing or expanded infrastructure of Turkey to the Balkan Peninsula, and then the distribution of ten billion cubic meters (that Azerbaijan intends to sell on the European market in the second phase of development of the Shah Deniz gas condensate field) to small buyers, including Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia and others via the existing gas pipelines system.
"We have put a lot of resource behind our own SEEP project just to make sure that we do have an option when we get to the middle of 2013 where you have to press the button on $15 billion plus of expenditure" for Shah Deniz II", Garlick said.
Garlick also expressed hope that the Shah Deniz consortium can propose a pipeline partner within weeks.
"We are moving towards hopefully forming a recommendation, certainly by the end of the first quarter," Garlick told the European Gas Conference.
He also added that the consortium has not yet eliminated any suitors in the pipeline contest.
"Everyone is still in the running, very much, he said. None of the three projects is sufficiently de-risked that we would want to choose one of them. Each of them we feel needs to do some work," he underscored.
At present, Azerbaijan considers different options to transport its gas to the European markets, including the Southern Gas Corridor.
On Oct. 1, Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), Nabucco and ITGI projects submitted the final proposals to the Azerbaijani side, which will review them in accordance with the previously announced criteria. The decision on the preferable transportation route is expected to be made in the first quarter of 2012.Azerbaijan plans to export 10 billion cubic metres of gas within the Shah Deniz-2 project.
Do you have any feedback? Contact our journalist at agency@trend.az
=====================
Flagship EU gas pipeline project near collapse: Analysts
Sunday, 05 February 2012
Nabucco, the pipeline would head up to Austria to serve more lucrative European markets, but at less cost due to its lower initial capacity and use of existing infrastructure. (File photo)
By AFP
ANKARA
Europe’s flagship project to bolster its energy security by building a major gas pipeline to the Caspian that skirts Russia is near collapse, analysts say, with a newly confident Turkey playing a key role.
Recent developments, including decisions by Ankara, have undercut the viability of the Nabucco pipeline, a project to ship more than 30 billion cubic meters of gas per year from the Caspian and beyond to Europe.
Repeated disputes between Russia and Ukraine over transit tariffs that led to supply cuts pushed the EU in 2009 to launch its Southern Gas Corridor initiative, of which Nabucco is the biggest project, to reduce its dependence on Russian gas supplies.
But in December, Turkey gave Russia the green light for its South Stream project to run through its Black Sea waters, with construction of the 63 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year pipeline to start by the end of this year. “The Nabucco project was in a coma long before the South Stream agreement,” said Necdet Pamir, a former deputy director of Turkey’s TPAO oil company. “But nobody dares to say Nabucco is already dead,” he told AFP.Nabucco was to run some 3,900 kilometers (2,400 miles) across Turkey then up through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to reach Austria where it would link up with a major distribution network. Turkey also signed in December a deal with Azerbaijan to build the Trans-Anatolia Pipeline (TANAP) to carry 10 bcm per year of Azeri gas to European markets, plus 6 bcm for itself, casting further doubt on Nabucco which is having difficulty getting commitments of gas supplies. Publicly, officials say Turkey, one of six partners in Nabucco, still supports the pipeline. “We continue our efforts for this project to come true,” Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said recently. However, analysts believe Ankara is not wedded to the project.
“Turkey was not completely onboard on Nabucco,” said Andrew Neff, senior energy analyst at IHS Global Insight, adding: “Turkey sees itself as a power arbitrator.”Ross Wilson, a former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and now director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council in the United States, noted that approving South Stream may have improved Ankara’s position as jostling continues over a final project. “None of the recent developments regarding South Stream undermine or threaten in any way the Southern gas corridor -- recognizing that this corridor may be Nabucco, ITGI, TAP or the new Southeast Europe line,” he said. It “may increase Turkey’s leverage in the end-game negotiations over the coming months to finalize the Southern Gas Corridor pipeline, sales purchase agreements and the like,” Wilson told AFP. Modest projects Two of the other competing pipelines are more modest projects to ship gas from Turkey across Greece to Italy -- the Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI) and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) -- and both have said they are willing to cooperate with TANAP which would be able to provide them with sufficient supplies. “Nabucco has been an incomplete project since the very beginning,” said Mete Goknel, former director of Turkey’s state-owned pipeline company, Botas, which is one of the Nabucco consortium partners. “Who will ship the gas through the pipeline?” Central Asia is Moscow’s backyard and Russia’s Gazprom has most supply tied up, while sourcing from Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region is fraught given the political frictions with the central government in Baghdad. The EU’s dispute with Tehran over its nuclear programme takes Iran off the list of potential suppliers while unrest in Syria also currently rules it out. Elnur Soltanov, Director of the Caspian Center for Energy and Environment at the Azerbaijani Diplomatic Academy, said recently that the Southeast Europe Pipeline (SEEP) promoted by British energy giant BP provides the best solution. Like Nabucco, the pipeline would head up to Austria to serve more lucrative European markets, but at less cost due to its lower initial capacity and use of existing infrastructure. The EU could present the pipeline as a short-term Nabucco, while its lower capacity would unlikely provoke Russia into a dispute, according to Soltanov. “In the imperfect world of gas pipelines, SEEP represents the best of possible options for all parties involved,” he wrote in a paper for Italy’s International Affairs Institute, calling the the pipeline a “Nabucco Junior.” Analysts point out that even with a major pipeline like Nabucco that Europe’s growing need for gas means that it won’t be able to significantly reduce its dependence on Russia. BP forecasts use of gas for power production in industrialized European countries will jump from around 40 percent currently to 60 percent in 2030, with Europe’s import requirements likely to double by 2030 as a result. Imports accounted for 444 bcm of the 553 bcm of gas the 27 EU member states used 2010, according to Eurostat. ======================
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Russia and Iraqi Oil
Tags: Russian-Iraqi relations, Commentary, Business, Russia, World, oil extraction
Pershkina Anastasiya
Jan 19, 2012 20:57 Moscow Time
Photo: RIA Novosti
Five Russian companies will fight for Iraq oil tender. The auction will take place in April this year. Among the candidates are Russia’s state oil company Rosneft and the Bashneft Company, for which the geological survey in Iraq may become its first project abroad.
Iraq has been holding auctions for its deposits since 2009. However, it is for the first time that it has decided to offer foreign companies a tender for geological survey, not for oil extraction. On the one hand, this could reduce interest in the auction, and on the other, we know that up to 15 per cent of the world reserves of oil are concentrated in Iraq. This fact dispels all doubts, which all those who are involved in the oil extraction business may have. Russia has never had any doubt, though, an analyst with the Moscow-based “Investcafe” agency, Vitaly Mikhalchuk, says.
"Specialists from the former Soviet Union worked in Iraq earlier, and today Russia continues oil extraction in Iraq, taking into consideration the following: first, all these are promising deposits and second, Russian companies have sufficient experience of working in Iraq. For example, the LUKOIL Company is developing the West Qurna -2 oilfield in Iraq and the Russian gas giant Gazprom is developing Iraq’s Badra oil deposit."
The Iraqi authorities’ interest in developing cooperation with the Russian companies can be explained not only by economic but also by political factors. The USA and Britain would like to get involved in the development of Iraq’s resources too. However, Iraq’s relations with these two countries are tense. That is why there’s reason to believe that Iraq will prefer to work with Russian companies, which is expected to be mutually advantageous cooperation, the President of the Union of the Oil and Gas Industrialists Gennady Shmal says.
"The cost of oil extraction in Iraq is much lower than in Russia. Besides, the logistics sector in Iraq causes no pain at all. Europe, Japan, China, and many other countries buy Iraq’s oil with pleasure. Therefore, the companies working in Iraq show high economic indices, which means that such cooperation is beneficial for them."
Both the development and the geological survey of deposits abroad mean consortium working with other companies. Powerful tandems can emerge in the course of such work. As an example, we can mention here the cooperation between Russia’s state oil company “Rosneft” and the American Exxon Mobil Corporation. These two are developing the Black Sea Shelf, sharing the existing risks. The Exxon Mobil Corporation undertakes the greater part of spending for geological survey, and its Russian partner gets involved at the stage of development. For a joint participation in the tender “Bashneft” has chosen the Vietnamese company PetroVietnam. It is a very interesting partner, continues Gennady Shmal:
"Any alliance is of great help in using the experience which the two sides have acquired. For example, the Vietnamese company, PetroVietnam” is developing the White Tiger deposit in the southern part of the country. This deposit is considered to be a very difficult one – that is why cooperation would be only welcome there."
The main problem in Iraq is the fact that its infrastructure was practically ruined during the war. Besides, the debates about the oil-and-gas law were again delayed in early January. The Kurdistan Regional Government and the federal government of Iraq have been debating about the control of the oil and gas deposits in the country for nearly 2 years now. The interest of the parties concerned is quite understandable but foreign companies whose rights are defended by no law at all may suffer as a result.
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Statoil to Sell Stake in West Qurna-2?
Posted on 15 January 2012. Tags: Statoil, West Qurna
The Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reports that Norwegian producer Statoil ASA is trying to sell its stake in the West Qurna-2 oilfield.
According to the report, the company may use the negotiations to improve the terms of the West Qurna-2 contract and decide against pulling out.
If a sale happened, it would be the first re- sale of energy assets awarded to international companies during Iraq’s 2009 auction round.
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Global oil and gas M&A faces tough 2012
Thu, Jan 19 13:53 PM EST
* Funding difficulties could limit deals in 2012
* Global oil, gas M&A hit $317 billion last year
* Shale-related transactions tipped for growth
By Oleg Vukmanovic
LONDON, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Oil and gas company mergers and acquisitions rose in number but fell in total value in 2011 due to a decline in transactions topping $1 billon, according to an analysis of activity by global law firm Ernst & Young .
Funding difficulties and euro zone debt fears could keep a leash on deal-making in 2012, particularly in the economically sensitive parts of the downstream sector, the firm warned.
Companies struck 1,322 deals worth $317 billion, compared with $341 billion recorded in 2010 due to a decline in mega-deals from 76 to 71.
The number of deals rose by more than 5 percent. North America continued to fuel activity with 562 deals in the upstream sector, but Europe and ex-Soviet states saw the strongest growth, the report said.
"The oil and gas market has proved that it can adapt to higher levels of uncertainty and keep transacting. The key questions now are how it will cope with the combination of commodity price volatility and structural contraction in global debt capacity," Andy Brogan of Ernst & Young's transaction advisory services said.
Shale-related transactions are tipped to see growth as China moves to develop its unconventional resource base, the biggest in the world with 19 percent of global reserves.
About $66 billion was spent on shale transactions.
Activity in the downstream sector declined modestly during 2011, but overall values were comparable with 2010 levels.
"Downstream activity will continue but may be more concentrated in storage and midstream rather than refining." Brogan said.
In oilfield services, high capitalization rates and opportunism meant an increase in deal activity that is set to continue in 2012, "underpinned by those seeking new geographies, new customers and new technologies", the firm said.
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Iraq, Lukoil Award $998M West Qurna Deal to Samsung
THURSDAY, 26 JANUARY 2012 07:39 RIGZONE.COM
Basra. Iraq and Russia's OAO Lukoil Holding have awarded a $998 million deal to south Korea's Samsung Group to develop the supergiant West Qurna phase 2 oil field, the Iraqi government said in a statement Wednesday.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Samsung would build a central processing facility for oil production in the field. "Work in the processing facility is expected to finish in 31 months from the start of the work," Dabbagh said following a weekly cabinet meeting.
Lukoil and Norway's Statoil ASA were awarded a 20-year service contract for West Qurna Phase 2 in Iraq's second licensing round held in December 2009. The companies promised to get the southern field pumping at a rate of 1.8 million barrels a day for payment of $1.15 a barrel with first oil planned for early 2013.
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Bulgartransgaz Reports 1/3 Drop in Russian Gas Supplies
Energy | February 3, 2012, Friday| 295 views
According to Bulgartransgaz CEO Kiril Temelkov, Russia has slashed gas deliveries to Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and Macedonia by 1/3. Photo by actualno.com
Russian gas supplies to Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and Macedonia have been reduced by 1/3, according to Kiril Temelkov, CEO of Bulgaria's state-owned gas transmission operator Bulgartransgaz.
"At present, gas supplies for Bulgaria, as well as volumes of gas exported for Greece, Turkey and Macedonia, have been slashed by over 30%," Temelkov said in an interview on Friday.
Bulgartransgaz' CEO explained that Bulgaria was using its own reserves to make up for the gas supply restriction amid the severe winter weather.
On Thursday, Dimitar Gogov, CEO of state-owned gas supplier Bulgargaz, told Capital Daily that natural gas consumption in Bulgaria had gone up by 10-15% over the cold spell of the last days.
He told journalists that increased demand was being met by tapping reserves from the Chiren gas depot and from local gas production, which he said was quite scant.
Gogov added that the consumers had been advised to stick to the contracted volumes of natural gas.
Gogov further explained that, although the Chiren gas depot contained reserves for 90 days, only limited quantities of gas could be taken out of it on a daily basis, and the volumes would not suffice to meet soaring consumption.
Earlier on Friday, EU observer noted that impact of the sharp drop in Russian gas supplies had spread to a total of nine countries, including Italy, Austria, Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary and Romania.
Gas supply restrictions first hit Italy on Tuesday.
Tags: Bulgartransgaz, Kiril Temelkov, Dimitar Gogov, Bulgargaz, natural gas, Russian gas, Chiren
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