Hayward steps in as interim Glencore chairman

Former BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward is will serve as interim board chairman at mining behemoth Glencore Xstrata until a replacement can be found. Hayward was head of BP at the time of the Deepwater Horizon incident – a rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 that killed 11 and set off a massive oil spill, as well as tens of billions in fines for BP – and now runs Genel Energy, which operates in Kurdistan in northern Iraq. Good overview coverage by the New York Times and BBC News, but Quartz has the best photograph.

Oil traders under investigation for price manipulation

EU antitrust regulators are investigating BP, Shell and Statoil for manipulation of data provided to energy news and pricing agency Platts, according to reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal.

At issue is the potential for traders to push prices in one direction or another during Platts’ daily trading window.

“The so-called Platts window, or market-on-close (MOC) system, is a daily half-hour period in which it determines cash prices through a series of bids, offers and trades. Critics say the system is only a snapshot of the market, because it excludes trade outside the window – one reason that it can be vulnerable to manipulation,” according to Reuters.

Gazprom gas pipeline to cost $8 million/km

Natural Gas Europe reports that Russian gas giant Gazprom’s planned pipeline to deliver 61 billion cubic meters a year of  East Siberian gas to Asian markets will cost a mind-blowing $8 million per kilometer.

Gazprom management has selected a 5,700 km pipeline plan requiring a total capital expenditure budget of $46.12 billion. “It means that the average kilometer of the pipeline system will cost $8 million, which is a record even for the notoriously overpriced projects of Gazprom,” the article says.