Energy Blast – June 8, 2012

Russia backs Tehran’s nuclear program, Vladimir Putin has told his Iranian counterpart Mahmud Ahmadinejad, but only for civilian purposes.  Russia and Algeria are reportedly considering cooperating in the LNG industry.  Seeking to reduce its reliance on Russia by building a LNG terminal, Poland may be interested in shipments from the US.  According to Bloomberg, BP and its partners at Azerbaijan’s Chirag-Guneshli oilfield pumped 15 million metric tons of crude from the deposit in the first five months of the year.  As part of a drive to ship Russian gas to major energy consumer China, Gazprom has suggested swapping production assets.  It has been reported that Rosatom may join the Horizon project on the construction of nuclear power plants in Britain.    Kazakhstan apparently intends to begin enriching uranium at a processing center in the Russian town of Novouralsk.  Gazprom has signed an agreement with Ukraine’s Naftogaz to issue an advance payment of $2 billion for Russian gas transit via Ukraine.