On September 14 in Baku, the heads of state endorsed the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector (AGRI), a project to import natural gas from Azerbaijan to Romania and onward to Hungary. The project involves the liquefaction of gas for shipment by tankers across the Black Sea from Georgia... MORE

On September 7 in Brussels, three leading international financial institutions launched the process of funding the Nabucco gas pipeline project, potentially to a multi-billion Euro level. The European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the World Bank’s International Finance... MORE

Russia’s Surgutneftegaz has filed a case in Budapest’s Metropolitan Court, seeking legal registration as a stakeholder in Hungarian MOL, the national oil and gas company. Surgut is asking the court to invalidate MOL’s April 2010 refusal to enter the Russian company’s shares in the Hungarian... MORE

At its annual meeting of shareholders on April 29, Hungarian MOL oil and gas company cemented its defense against a possible takeover move by Russian Surgutneftegaz. With corporate and legal defenses in place, and a new Hungarian government firmly installed after the landslide election victory,... MORE

For the second consecutive year, Russia’s Surgutneftegaz has failed to crash the door of the Hungarian MOL’s annual general meeting of its shareholders and the board of directors. The April 29 event seems set to consolidate MOL’s defenses against such predatory takeover tactics. MOL’s oil-refining... MORE

On January 31 in Budapest, Russian and Hungarian officials signed the project agreement for the construction of Gazprom’s South Stream pipeline on Hungarian territory. Hungary’s privately-owned MOL Company, a member of the Nabucco consortium, is not a party to the South Stream agreement. Hungary participates... MORE

Hungarian MOL's oil-producing joint venture in Russia, ZMB, has gained a respite from the Russian authorities' threat to revoke its production license. ZMB (Zapadno-Malobalyk), a parity joint venture of MOL with Russneft in western Siberia's Khanty-Mansi district, had recently been warned by Russia's mineral resources... MORE

On July 13 the Nabucco transit countries removed an important obstacle for the strategic pipeline project. Attending a high profile meeting hosted by Turkey, the prime ministers of Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Turkey inked the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA). The ceremony was also attended by... MORE

A burst of sunshine has finally been shed on the little known story of how a once obscure Ukrainian entrepreneur, Dmytro Firtash, suspected of links to Russian organized crime, and his unknown partners in a Cypriot holding company named Mabofi Holdings, established Emfesz KFT, a... MORE