Tag Archives: Energy

A consortium of oil companies, including Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Lukoil have reportedly made a major oil discovery in the eastern part of the Libyan Desert in Egypt.  The Brazilian offshore area Spain’s Repsol is exploring with China Petroleum apparently contains the equivalent of at least 1.25 billion barrels of oil.  China National Offshore Oil [...]

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Iran is ready to negotiate on its controversial nuclear program.  Gazprom, which plans to raise investment even further this year, has again delayed crude production at Russia’s first delve into offshore Arctic oil, the Prirazlomnoye field.  Apparently the energy monopoly is reconsidering the composition of the consortium to develop [...]

The director of the UN nuclear watchdog, Yukiya Amano, has told the press that he expects to sign a deal with Iran to facilitate investigation into suspected work on atom bombs, ‘soon’.  President Putin has signed a decree adding four key energy companies and Rosneft to the list of Russian strategic enterprises that will, most [...]

Russian licencing agency Rosnedra cancelled its decision to grant a licence for the Trebs and Titov oil fields to a consortium of Bashneft and Lukoil, blaming the pair’s insufficient refining capacity.  TNK-BP is postponing a decision on dividend payout, supposedly as a result of a ‘broadening rift’ with BP shareholders.  China’s crude oil imports from [...]

Saudi Arabia has overtaken Russia as the world’s largest oil producer for the first time in six years, thanks to boosting its own production to a 31-year high.  Despite insistence that it has been keeping up a post-Soviet production high, Forbes shows evidence to suggest that Russian output has dropped since the end of last [...]

In a somewhat embarrassing admission, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has apparently acknowledged that his much vaunted Kharkiv natural gas deal with Russia in 2010 brought the country little in the way of actual benefits.  Following a decision by authorities to restrict crude oil transportation by rail, Russia is apparently facing domestic fuel shortages.  State oil [...]

The Moscow Times has an in-depth report on the risks involved in digging for oil in the Arctic given that its ‘fragile environment and sensitive ecology present unique challenges’.  This report claims that Iran is installing more centrifuges in an underground plant but does not yet appear to be using them to expand higher-grade uranium enrichment.  [...]

According to Reuters, Russia’s deputy prime minister, Igor Sechin, has voiced his opposition to the sale of a stake in state oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, on the basis that it would make the company’s debt refinancing complicated.  Gazprom’s plans to export 150 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe annually may have been jeopardized by [...]

Polish gas monopoly PGNiG posted a 70% drop in first-quarter net profits, largely due to the increased costs of importing from Russia.  Russia’s acting Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin proposed that power grid firm MRSK merge with the Federal Grid Company; Renaissance Capital immediately called the suggestion ‘a victory for short-term political considerations over the [...]