Energy Blast – March 7, 2011

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has personally extended the contract of Alexei Miller, with whom he has ‘close ties’, as the head of Gazprom for another five years.  Following an unsuccessful extraordinary board meeting in Berlin, the row over the BP/Rosneft share swap continues, with BP and TNK-BP due to meet in London’s high court this week to work out an agreement; TNK-BP’s high court injunction is currently preventing BP and Rosneft from proceeding.  Putin has spoken out about the row, saying that TNK-BP’s move to block the Rosneft deal took him by surprise. ‘I was absolutely not aware (such move was possible). I met with the BP head and he did not say a word about it.‘  Algeria’s energy minister says that BP will not follow through on plans to sell its Algerian assets to TNK-BP.  The owner of Sistema says that the Kremlin favored Bashneft’s bid for the Trebs and Titov oil field last year in order to ‘set up another vertically integrated company to increase competition‘.  BG Group has finalized a 20-year LNG supply deal with Tokyo Gas.  The newly-opened Obskaya-Bovanenkovo railway line will connect major Yamal development sites with the rest of the Russian railway grid, says Gazprom.  Austria’s OMV says it is still receiving oil deliveries from Libya despite output disruptions.