Energy Blast – May 21, 2009

‘There will be the predictable difficulties in negotiations on energy issues’, says a top Russian senator on the Russia-EU summit, as there is ‘a global collision in strategy’.  President Medvedev will ‘be interested in the EU’s position . . . on the continuing threat to Europe resulting from our difficult relations with Ukraine in the gas sphere’.  American billionaire Walter Buffett will provide the start up money and Barack Obama the political support for an international nuclear fuel bank to be created in Central Asia.  Rusnano and Viktor Vekselberg’s Renova are embarking upon a $635 million project to manufacture solar panels in the republic of Chuvashia.  Swiss technology group Oerlikon is negotiating to join the project, which would involve a 700 million Swiss franc supply deal with Rusnano.  Shell’s remuneration committee is reportedly under increasing pressure to step down after shareholders revolted at excessive-seeming payouts, following the company’s apparent under-par performance.  One effect of the Nord Stream pipeline project would be to increase the number of nuclear power plants in Russia, says a Greenpeace official.