Latest Articles about Energy
Austria Joins Gazprom’s South Stream Project
On April 24, Russia and Austria signed governmental and corporate agreements on Austria’s accession to Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline project. Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, led the Russian delegation to the signing event in Vienna, with follow-up visits to Italy and Ukraine on April 26... MORE
Turkey Unleashes New Energy Strategy Plan
The Turkish energy ministry announced the strategic energy plan for 2010-2014, which seeks to accomplish several objectives: boosting supply security and Turkey’s influence in regional and global energy markets, protecting the environment, making greater use of domestic resources and restructuring the legal-institutional infrastructure of the... MORE
Opposition Slams Yanukovych for Promising to Renounce Highly Enriched Uranium
Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, promised his US counterpart, Barack Obama, to renounce the nation’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU) during their meeting on the fringes of the nuclear security summit in Washington on April 12. In return, Washington offered financial and technical assistance, in... MORE
Surgut Misfires Once More Against Hungarian MOL
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
AGRI: First Ever LNG Project in the Black Sea
Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Romanian are jointly launching a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, designated as the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector (AGRI). The three governments regard their project as an element in the EU-planned Southern Corridor for Caspian gas to Europe.AGRI envisages transporting Azerbaijani gas by pipeline to... MORE
Oil “Export” Duties: a Peculiarity of the Russian-Led Customs Union
The Russian government is apparently moving to operationalize the nominal “union state” with Belarus through a process of economic absorption. Accession to the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union is not protecting Belarus against this process.Russia’s introduction of export duties on refined oil products and “petrochemical raw material”... MORE
Ukrainian Government Examines Belarusian Model of Gas Trade With Russia
Ukraine’s newly elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, and the new government clamored for low-priced Russian gas from their first day in office. As an opening gambit they called for a price similar to that paid by Belarus; or in the worst case somewhat higher at $200... MORE
Ukrainian Government Reconsiders Gas Policy
Based upon the record of the last eight years, Ukrainian governments and industrialists linked to them have sought deep discounts on the price of Russian gas in two ways, both ultimately self-defeating.One way would allow Russia’s Gazprom to control Ukraine’s gas transit system through some... MORE
Turkey Signs Nuclear Deal with South Korea
During the Turkish-Korean joint business forum, held in Turkey on March 10, a protocol was signed to cooperate on Turkey’s second planned nuclear power plant. During the signing ceremony, Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, welcomed this development as a positive step toward bolstering Turkish trade... MORE
New Team in Kyiv Sets Stage for Gas Consortium With Russia
Ukraine’s new government, built around the Party of Regions, has re-empowered some key Ukrainian protagonists of gas “schemes” with Russia from past years (Naftohaz Ukrainy Management Change Indicates Turn to Russia, EDM, March 24).Yulia Tymoshenko‘s government succeeded in ridding Ukraine of those schemes at the... MORE