Energy Blast – May 28, 2010

Dmitry Medvedev offers a rather gloomy prognosis for BP; the President has suggested the company could buckle under the pressure of the Deepwater spill and go under.  He is not alone;  the Telegraph wonders if the company should brace itself for a takeover.  Vladimir Putin has asserted that the Nord Stream pipeline would not pose as big a risk for the Baltic Sea as BP’s wells in the Gulf of Mexico.  The United States will, according to Oil and Gas Eurasia, ban drilling in Arctic waters until at least 2011, over fears for its safety in the event of a spill.  Finland has recommended creating a Russian-Finnish energy club. The two countries have apparently agreed on a monitoring system for Nord Stream.  Eni SpA’s Arctic gas venture with Gazprom and Enel SpA plans to almost triple output in a decade, as its ex-Yukos owned field reaches a peak.   According to the Moscow Times, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko has welcomed Belarus’ offer to relinquish control of its domestic pipeline operator, as a ‘positive signal‘.  Reuters reports a rather less optimistic response from Shmatko, saying that the energy minister has suggested that control of the gas grid will not solve existing problems over prices.