Energy Blast – June 26, 2009

Total is willing to invite Gazprom to collaborate in Africa and elsewhere.  Gazprom has hit out at the EU for allegedly discriminating against its gas pipeline projects, just two days before its meeting with Ukraine to discuss payment issues.  The company may decrease its capital investment for gas production by as much as 30%.  China has offered Turkmenistan a $4 billion loan as Beijing seeks to establish a foothold in the nation’s energy resources.  The two countries have signed a 30-year agreement, by which Turkmenistan will export 30% more gas to China each year, and which, according to the Guardian, will threaten Russia’s ‘hegemony over energy supplies from central Asia‘.  Reuters examines why China has more luck securing reserves in developing countries as opposed to developed nations.  Gazprombank and the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia have agreed to finance the construction of an 800 MW gas turbine power plant in Namibia.  Alexander Lebedev’s Russia’s National Reserve Bank has taken a 50% share in the troubled oil explorer Timan.  Siberian Coal Energy Co. has announced that this year it intends to increase exports by 10% as demand from Asia grows.