Energy Blast – August 20, 2009

Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko has said that electricity prices must increase following the disaster at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric plant as it has seen a quarter of RusHydro’s power production suspended.  Clean-up efforts have begun to attempt to minimize the damage caused by an oil slick in the Yenisei river, created by the explosion at the plant.  See a video interview with Carl Larry, president of Oil Outlooks & Opinions, on Bloomberg, discussing the reasons why he thinks that oil prices will increase.  Is this the end of the oil age? wonders Bill Emmott in the Times.  As OPEC ‘deliberately cut production…to keep prices high‘, will buyers lose patience and turn to substitutes?  Vietsovpetro, Vietnam’s joint endeavor with Russia’s Zarubezhneft will spend $1 billion constructing a LNG pipeline to the south of the country.  An international conference on Arctic security, attended by several nations including the United States has begun in Russia, to discuss tactics in the region believed to hold up to 90 billion barrels of untapped oil.