Energy Blast – Nov 10, 2009

The US is apparently willing to give Iran more time to decide whether it will accept the UN’s recent proposal on uranium enrichment abroad.  Bad news for Gazprom – the company’s profits fell by 48% in the first six months of the year and its debt grew by 31% in the same period.  The company expects to meet its target of exporting 142-143 billion cubic meters of gas in 2009 as demand continues to recover.  The Russian monopoly could fine European consumers for falling short of contracted purchase volumes by 8-9 billion cubic meters of gas and Ukraine may be among them.  Lukoil has received a $300 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.   Mikhael Gorbachev urges that the new ‘wall’ of climate change be addressed.  China will offer $10 billion in concessional loans to Africa to get a foothold into the continent’s exploitable energy resources.  Americans have a double incentive to hope that that a new START treaty is drawn up soon; the less obvious reason being that salvaged bomb material is powering about 10% of electricity in the US, some of which is obsolete Russian nukes.  The Wall Street Journal looks at hostile political signals from the Nord Stream pipeline: ‘Russia’s geopolitical message here is clear: It doesn’t trust the new EU member states as transit countries or even as energy consumers and is willing to incur enormous costs to bypass them’.