Energy Blast, April 14, 2008

A Gazprom meeting considered the prospects for cooperation in Slovenia and discussed the Republic’s possible participation in the South Stream project. Iraq’s oil ministry has published a list of 35 companies qualified to bid in the first licensing round for oil and gas contracts, including Gazprom and Lukoil. A full list can be found here. Evraz’s steel mill in Oregon is running at full speed, “illustrat[ing] the rampant global construction program for energy pipelines.” French and German energy giants EDF and RWE remain frontrunners in the battle to buy the $22 billion UK nuclear power group British Energy, despite the emergence of new potential bidders, including Swedish group Vattenfall. Eurasian Natural Resources, the Kazakh miner, has been given a month to make a firm offer for copper miner Kazakhmys or walk away from a potential deal for six months. An ENRC-Kazakhmys tie-up would create a national mining champion for Kazakhstan worth more than $40 billion. “Rapidly rising food and energy prices are seen as the biggest economic problem facing European countries – and are provoking far more concern than unemployment.”