Energy Blast – Dec 31, 2010

In a secret venture with the US, Ukraine apparently dispatched 110 pounds of highly enriched uranium to Russia to be blended down, in return for Washington providing low enriched uranium.  Good news for Israel, which has apparently discovered a huge offshore natural gas field, described ‘as the world’s biggest gas find in the past decade’, potentially worth $95 billion – but will there be buyers?  India and Iran are hoping to put an end to an oil payments row with a meeting today between central bank officials of both nations.  Russia will start its first oil pipeline to China at midnight tonight, upping crude exports to its energy-hungry neighbor.  In a ‘historic’ decision the Serbian government has revoked the monopoly on crude imports which was enjoyed by a Gazprom-controlled entity, NIS.  Turkmenistan has hopes to triple natural gas output to 125 billion cubic meters a year in 2015.