Energy Blast – Dec 31, 2009

The FT reports that Kazakhstan claims to have surpassed Canada and Australia as the world’s number one uranium miner.  An article on RFE/RL expresses concern about the destination of this abundance of the nuclear element.  Ukraine may pay more for Russian gas in the first quarter of 2010, increasing prices by just under $100 per cubic meter.  Belarus will also pay around 11% more for its gas from Russia in the first months of 2010 than it did on average in 2009.  Russia expects to reduce exports of crude in January by 6.1% from four Baltic and Black Sea ports.  The country’s sole LNG producer, Sakhalin Energy, has more than matched its targets for 2009, beating its LNG target by 47% and its crude by more than 11%.  It’s curtains for Lithuania’s only nuclear plant, the 25-year old Chernobyl-resembling Ignalina, as the nation fulfills its promise to the EU to shut it down due to its similarity to the doomed Ukrainian reactor.  Having failed to come to trial in Nigeria, a Dutch court may hear the case of a group of Nigerians and Friends of the Earth Netherlands against Royal Dutch Shell for damages allegedly made to the Niger Delta during its operations there.