industryterm:gas giant

  • Turkey agrees with Azerbaijan to accelerate gas project
    http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-agrees-with-azerbaijan-to-accelerate-gas-project-.aspx?pag

    Turkey has agreed with Azerbaijan to accelerate the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP), with an aim to have the gas project completed before the planned 2018, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said on Dec. 3, as quoted by Reuters.

    In a joint news conference with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev in the capital Baku, Davutoğlu also said Turkey was willing to share details of its recent jet downing incident with Russia.

    This was the latest move by Turkey’s leaders, who are in an effort to diversify energy supplies as ties with its largest natural gas provider Russia have tumbled following the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkey.

    Earlier this week President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Qatar to explore the possibility of buying more liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its Gulf Arab ally.

    Turkey’s gas grid BOTAŞ and Qatar’s national oil energy company inked a memorandum of understanding during Erdoğan’s visit on Dec. 2 which will pave the way for Turkey to import LNG in both a regular and long-term manner, according to Turkish officials.

    This accord will help Turkey’s LNG imports from Qatar gain a long-term perspective, the officials said, as reported by Anadolu Agency.

    In the meantime, Russian gas supplies to Turkey are flowing normally, despite the row between the two countries, a source in Russian gas giant Gazprom told Reuters on Dec. 3.

    #Turquie #Russie #Energie #Qatar #Azerbaidjan

  • Long et intéressant article sur le conflit UE-Gazprom

    Stalled Gazprom Antitrust Case May Suggest Unease for Energy Sanctions - NYTimes.com
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/business/international/stalled-gazprom-antitrust-case-may-signal-unease-in-eu-for-energy-sanctions

    Even as Russia and the West keep raising the stakes in their economic sanctions battle, the one commodity that could matter most — Russian natural gas — seems still to be off limits.

    And that is all the more notable because long before Ukraine erupted as a geopolitical crisis, the European Union was aggressively pressing an antitrust case against the Russian state-controlled gas giant, Gazprom. If Europe has grounds to punish Moscow economically, the Gazprom antitrust case might seem to be a prime opportunity.

    Gazprom is suspected of inflating prices and imposing unfair restrictions on gas distribution within Europe, which is heavily reliant on Russian natural gas.

    As recently as last winter, Russia and the European Union’s competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, seemed on the verge of settling. But now the case appears to be languishing. And people close to the inquiry are uncertain whether it will be revived before the autumn, when Mr. Almunia is scheduled to leave office.

    While that prospect is disappointing to small European Union countries like Lithuania that are particularly dependent on Gazprom for their energy needs, the lost momentum of the antitrust case seems to underscore a reality: So far the sanctions war may be more about symbolic actions than imposing far-reaching economic pain on either side.

    Les accusations

    The antitrust investigation began in September 2011 with surprise raids by European officials on Gazprom offices and those of several of its customers in Germany and across Central and Eastern Europe.

    A year later Mr. Almunia opened a formal antitrust case asking three main questions:
    – Was Gazprom blocking gas flows in some parts of Europe?
    – Was the company thwarting its European customers’ efforts to diversify sources of supply?
    – And was it imposing unfairly high charges by linking gas prices to those of oil, rather than basing prices on global natural gas market rates?

    The case concentrated on Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

    Comment déterminer le « prix juste » (ie du marché) en situation d’exclusivité et d’absence d’alternative ?

    But the current case is a challenge to the way Gazprom links its gas prices to oil. That is a hugely sensitive issue for Mr. Putin and Russia, where a significant chunk of the national budget depends on the company’s energy export earnings.

    Oil-linked pricing in Europe goes back decades to the development of gas fields in countries like the Netherlands. Gas was pegged to the price of oil, which gas was replacing for uses like heating.

    But linked pricing began breaking down in Western Europe with deregulation of energy markets and with the availability of new supplies like liquefied natural gas, or L.N.G. But pricing still can be opaque, even in Western Europe, where a complete break of the oil-gas price link has proved difficult for big buyers in countries including Italy.

    Energy experts said Mr. Almunia would be on firm legal ground in demanding that Gazprom rid contracts of clauses that limit Eastern and Central European countries from shipping Russian gas to other destinations within the European Union. But many say that Mr. Almunia may have less standing to challenge Gazprom’s pricing practices.

    “For the Baltic States and Poland I think the commission is on difficult ground,” said Jonathan Stern, the chairman of a natural gas research program at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. He said the only viable alternative source of supply for those countries was L.N.G., which usually comes by ship from countries like Qatar and Norway and still is generally more costly than Russian gas carried by pipeline.

    “It’s very unlikely that either the Poles or the Lithuanians or anyone in the Baltics currently and historically could have obtained gas at a cheaper price than the Russians are selling it to them,” Mr. Stern said. “Politicians and people high up in the commission say the fact that prices charged to the Baltic States are higher than the prices charged to Germany proves those prices are anticompetitive. But that is not proof.”

  • La bataille entre Moscou et Qatar pour le contrôle du marché méditerranéen s’aiguise...

    Gazprom Signs Deal to Market Israel’s Tamar LNG Project | Fox Business
    http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2013/02/26/gazprom-signs-deal-to-market-israel-tamar-lng-project/?intcmp=trending

    Gazprom Signs Deal to Market Israel’s Tamar LNG Project
    By James MarsonPublished February 26, 2013Dow Jones Newswires
    OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) has signed a deal to market liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Tamar floating LNG project in Israel, the Russian gas giant said in a statement Tuesday.
    Gazprom Marketing & Trading Switzerland signed heads of agreement for exclusive offtake from the Tamar project for 20 years with Levant LNG Marketing Corporation.

    The state-controlled energy firm is increasing its involvement in LNG as demand for gas delivered by pipeline to Europe, its most lucrative market, declines. In recent years large amounts of natural gas have been discovered off Israel’s coast. The Tamar field contains around 9 trillion cubic feet of gas.