On Friday, President Obama met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House and seemed to dismiss the notion that Russia would “turn off the tap to Europe” by calling it “unrealistic”. He added that natural gas kept flowing even at the height of the Cold War. Both leaders appeared to be ready and… Keep reading →
As tension in Ukraine ratchets up, investors and business leaders with regional interests are closely monitoring their risk profiles. What would return to a Cold War era geopolitical landscape mean? Western oil companies like BP, ExxonMobil and Shell with extensive Russian operations are certainly asking this question. Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier recently weighed in… Keep reading →
This concluding article in a 3-part series details Gazprom’s changing European natural gas export strategy as it bumps up against EU regulations designed to promote market liberalization by unbundling energy production, transmission, delivery and storage from single-company ownership. The new Gazprom-designed gas transit system outlined earlier in this series – here and here – is not… Keep reading →
This first of three articles on how Gazprom is attempting to revamp its natural gas export strategy in Europe reviews Germany’s central role in this endeavor with specific focus on the traditional role of underground gas storage facilities. Germany is the second largest natural gas consumer in the EU, closely trailing the United Kingdom. Moreover,… Keep reading →
By: Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS One of the biggest themes at Davos this year — and one that was not there last year — was “competitiveness.” You encountered it whether in the public sessions in the Congress Center, or in the private sessions, and at the various dinners in the hotels strung along… Keep reading →
A group of fracking protesters in England were arrested Monday when they reportedly glued and chained themselves to gasoline pumps at a retail station they thought was owned by French oil major Total. The group was protesting against the oil company’s regional gas develop operations, but embarrassingly Total no longer owns the station. The service… Keep reading →
European governments and businesses are discussing the next round of carbon emissions targets once existing greenhouse gas reduction goals expire in 2020. The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change says binding targets are needed to make investors confident in putting money into upgrading power generation infrastructure. “Setting out an ambitious 2030 emissions reduction target of… Keep reading →
Statoil has been proactively linking the contractual price of natural gas to European gas trading hubs and abandoning oil-linked pricing as Brussels pushes for market liberalization, consumers fight oil-linked prices and regional hubs gain liquidity. The change is slowly taking place in Eastern Europe, but “all of its German contracts and nearly all its UK,… Keep reading →
By Holly Ellyatt The shale gas revolution is only just beginning, but according to one leading analyst the U.K. and Europe have failed to capitalize on the maverick within the global energy market and are being left out in the cold. “I don’t think the U.K. is anywhere near catching up with the U.S.,” David… Keep reading →
Energy companies tend to go to great lengths to deflect or avoid negative attention. That’s what makes this Gazprom campaign so, um, surprising. Gazprom Arctic sent out a tweet today – the same day news broke that the EU is going to charge the gas giant in an antitrust case – with a picture attached. The… Keep reading →
