Energy Blast – Sept 2, 2011

The raid of BP’s offices has continued for a second day: ‘The bailiffs, accompanied by armed men, are searching documents containing key words as broad as “oil and gas”.’  The Exxon-Rosneft tie-up promises many good things for both sides, but ‘it is too early to pop open the champagne’, writes Michael Bohm: the initial BP agreement started with a similarly positive outlook before it collapsed.  Ben Aris disagrees: ‘The structure of the ExxonMobil deal is entirely different from the TNK-BP deal, a 50-50 split that was bound to cause problems when no one side is clearly in charge.’  Chevron is still in negotiations with Rosneft, despite news of the deal.  Russia and China will have another go at settling their differences over oil debt and gas prices later this month.  Royal Dutch Shell and Ukraine’s state-run Ukrgasvydobuvannya have signed a deal on tight gas exploration, part of Ukraine’s bid to reduce dependence on Russian gas.  The country has apparently threatened Russia that there will be ‘consequences’ if it doesn’t lower the price of its gas supplies, and hopes for a restructuring after Kiev completes its restructuring of Naftogaz.  Gazprom is trying to sign a new supply contract with Belarus.  The gas giant ‘lost or illegally spent’ about $1 billion in 2009, according to an Audit Chamber report.  On Poland’s plans to free up its gas market from the PGNiG monopoly.  TNK-BP apparently sold 200,000 metric tons of ESPO crude to BP: Bloomberg has the details.  Together with Gazprom, TNK-BP is helping Russia reach record-high oil outputs.