Energy Blast – January 9, 2012

Peruvian oil company PetroPeru will apparently join the Venezuelan project to produce crude in one of the world’s largest deposits, the Orinoco belt.  President Hugo Chavez has reportedly told Venezuelan TV viewers that the state will pay Exxon Mobil $250 million and not $12 billion in compensation for assets nationalized in 2007.  British MPs are set to question oil giants BP, Shell and Cairn Energy on the safety of drilling in the Arctic.  Indian refiners and oil ministry officials will meet today to consider alternative methods of paying for Iranian oil imports should US sanctions forbid an existing mechanism via Turkey’s Halkbank.  The Iranian ambassador to Moscow has said that the Russian proposal for a “step-by-step” plan toward Iran’s nuclear program, proposed in July of last year, has undergone a number of revisions.  In Lagos, hundreds of Nigerians have launched a nationwide strike in protest against the removal of a popular fuel subsidy in the country, which is Africa’s number one oil producer.  According to Reuters, KazMunaiGas Exploration Production has said that its crude oil production fell by 7% in 2011 due to a series of strikes by Kazakh workers over the summer months.  This article sees Bangladesh awarding Russia well-drilling contracts without going through a tender process and without a production sharing clause as a sign of their increasingly warm relations.