Energy Blast – Jan 13, 2010

The US has apparently overtaken Russia as the world’s biggest natural gas producer, according to reports from Bloomberg.  Several factors, including increased production of the ‘unconventional‘ shale gas have been cited as cause and it is suggested Russia may not be able to reclaim its crown until 2015.  South Stream, Blue Stream and the construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant are all on the agenda for talks between President Medvedev and Turkish Premier Tayyip Erdogan.  The latter apparently wants to make concrete an agreement on the construction of an oil pipeline between Turkey’s Black Sea town of Samsun and the Mediterranean coast.  Russia could halt oil deliveries to refineries in Belarus within a day as existing supply contracts expire.  Talks between the two nations on the transit of electricity have re-started in Minsk.  An in-depth analysis of the Belarus-Russia relationship can be found in Foreign Policy.  Sergei Lavrov has suggested that Russia’s neighboring energy transit countries subscribe to an ‘early warning system’ designed to prevent disruptions from affecting European customers.  South Korea is hoping to attain $400 billion of contracts for nuclear power plants by 2030 as demand for atomic energy grows.