Energy Blast – April 9, 2009

Hungarian President, Laszlo Solyom, is reportedly ‘worried’ about the circumstances under which Surgutneftegaz bought a stake in MOL, fearing the possibility of ‘creeping control’.  After a two-month suspension of activity, Exxon Mobil’s Sakhalin-1 project has been approved by the Russian government.  Gazprom will offer $2 billion worth of 10-year eurobonds to investors.  The Russian gas giant and Royal Dutch Shell have come to a series of agreements for the purchase of LNG from Sakhalin II over the next twenty years.  Italian utility giant, Enel, will keep its promise to invest $2.8 billion in Russia by 2013.  Lukoil has denied yesterday’s reports that the company is in talks with Polish refiner PKN Orlen.  Lukoil vice-president, Leonid Fedun, has commented in the Financial Times that ‘antagonism‘ from eastern European countries is driving Russian investors away.  Turkmenistan has apparently given clear indications that it wants to create a pipeline to export gas directly to Europe.  TNK-BP thinks that Russia needs a unified oil products exchange.  The Russian government will allow utilities companies to cut back on their projected $59 billion investment in the wake of the credit crunch.