Energy Blast – April 25, 2012

Hungary’s hopes to cooperate with Gazprom on the South Stream transit route may have dealt the Europe-backed Nabucco pipeline a ‘terminal blow’, says Bloomberg.  In April Gazprom’s gas exports to Europe, its key source of revenues, were 6% above the planned level for the month.  According to Reuters, Poland’s gas monopoly PGNiG believes the state needs to have evaluated its shale gas potential by 2019 in order to work out future contracts with the Russian gas giant.  Norway’s Statoil reportedly expects that daily gross production in the Scandinavian country’s Arctic oil fields could reach half a million barrels in eight years.  Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to purchase Cove Energy Plc after increasing its bid to $1.8 billion, securing access to gas fields discovered off Mozambique.