Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev have co-chaired the first meeting of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council (HLSCC) in Turkey’s Aegean city of Izmir. The HLSCC, which follows on the partnership model Turkey has been seeking to develop with neighboring... MORE

On October 25 in Izmir, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, witnessed the signing of agreements on the delivery and transit of Azerbaijani gas to Turkey and onward to European Union territory (Trend, Anatolia news agency, Platts Commodity News, October... MORE

The European Commission has pronounced against the Croatian government’s changes to the law on ownership of INA, the Croatian oil and gas company. The changes would have reserved for the government alone the right to own 49 percent or more of INA’s shares. The government’s... MORE

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s current prime minister, chose to make his first foreign trip to China after his announcement in late September that he would run again for president. This led some to expect Russia would align closer toward Beijing in coming years. Perhaps for this... MORE

Moscow claims to have resolved energy-related pricing disagreements with Beijing and has promised to increase bilateral trade. The official visit by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to China on October 10-11 was designed to give bilateral economic and energy ties yet another boost. For that... MORE

The updated estimates of Turkmenistan’s vast gas reserves (see EDM, October 20) and the European Commission’s support for a trans-Caspian pipeline to Europe are unwelcome by Moscow. On October 14, President Dmitry Medvedev chaired a special meeting of Russia’s Security Council on Russia-EU relations in... MORE

By the latest estimates, Turkmenistan’s potential gas reserves are even larger than previously thought, encouraging the European Union to tap into this potential, and motivating Ashgabat to cooperate with Brussels and Baku on a trans-Caspian pipeline bound for Europe despite Moscow’s opposition.On October 11 in... MORE

China’s European Satellite Launch Sets New Milestones On October 7, a Chinese Long March-3 rocket blasted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center, Sichuan Province, delivering a French Eutelsat communications satellite into orbit. This marked the first Chinese launch of a Western communications satellite since the... MORE

The European Commission has launched a round of inspections at Gazprom’s affiliate companies in EU member countries. This is the opening stage in an anti-trust investigation of the Russian monopoly’s activities in European Union territory (see EDM, October 3). It is an unprecedented move for... MORE

The European Commission (executive arm of the EU) has launched a systematic anti-trust investigation of Russian Gazprom’s operations in European Union countries. From September 27 onward, the Commission has conducted surprise inspections at many of Gazprom’s subsidiaries and its joint-venture partners. The firms in question... MORE