Energy Blast – August 3, 2009

International banks, the EU and Ukraine have met an agreement on Kiev reforming its gas sector that will allow the country to receive up to $1.7 billion in loans to secure gas transit.  The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said it could provide $300m for immediate working capital and up to $450m in 2010 for investment.  President Medvedev has opened the 75% Russian-owned $720 million hydropower plant in Tajikistan.  US murmurings about how to limit speculative trading on oil is prompting market figures in Russia to consider how these rules may affect their trading.  TNK-BP will start pumping oil from five new fields in Siberia in 2013 and 2014.  RFE/RL examines the interplay between China, the EU and Russia for control of energy resources in central Asia, with analysts describing the efficiency of China’s strategy, one of which being ‘the SCO is far more powerful than the Russian-led CSTO‘.  The Independent’s headline ‘Oil supplies are running out fast’ is followed by an interview with the head economist at the International Energy Agency, who suggests that the power of oil rich nations will dramatically increase as oil supplies become inexorably scarcer.