Energy Blast – Nov 29, 2010

TNK-BP is setting up an international trading arm, likely to be based in Geneva, which could prove a ‘serious rival‘ to London as a trading hub for physical energy commodities, reports the FT.  Germany’s E.On has launched a new gas-fired electricity plant outside Moscow, only the second of its kind in Europe, lauded by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin for its emissions-cutting potential and for having been funded largely by foreign investors.  Belarus expects the price it pays for Russian gas not to increase next year.  The BBC has a video report on Russia’s potential to harness its hydropower resources and become ‘an alternative energy superpower‘.  BP is to sell its 60% stake in Argentina’s Pan American Energy for over $7 billion.  Iran is confident that Bushehr, its first nuclear power plant, will become operational by the beginning of 2011.