BRUSSELS. Jan 14 (Interfax) – It is necessary to carry out eliminations and exceptions in the European Union law for the South Stream transborder pipeline, Russia’s envoy to the EU Vladimir Chizhov said. Moscow expects EU Commissioner for Energy Gunther Oettinger to elaborate on the way in which Brussels will hold talks on the South Stream on behalf of the […]
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KIEV, January 9 (RIA Novosti) Ukraine has ceased buying gas from Europe and will instead purchase the fuel solely from Russia, as it offers the lowest prices, Ukraine’s energy minister said Thursday. Russian gas is “the most profitable [supply option] for today,” said Ukraine’s Energy and Coal Industry Minister Eduard Stavitsky. Kiev has been buying gas from Poland and […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org – Donald N. Jensen – January 6, 2014) In December, after a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Viktor Yanukovych, Moscow announced that it would give Kiev a $15 billion bailout and slash the gas price by one-third as a reward for Yanukovych’s rejection of an association agreement with the European Union. Donald N. Jensen, […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 31 (Interfax) – Russia is looking to study oil and gas prospects as it prepares to extend its Arctic shelf borders. Subsurface resources agency Rosnedra has already announced – on the state procurement portal – a tender for the selection of an outfit to evaluate the prospects of oil and gas fields on Russia’s continental shelf beyond the […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 30 (Interfax) – The only good Gazprom (MOEX: GAZP) production news this year was on the export front, which is the profit margin generator. Against a backdrop of weakening competitors, Russian gas deliveries increased. The record holder Gazprom Export, instead of reaping rewards, got tax claims and equivalent to its annual revenue and exile to St. Petersburg. BETTER […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 26 (Interfax) – Growing production of shale oil and gas poses a significant risk to Russia’s economic security, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council has claimed. “Having increased its production of shale gas, the United States has reduced its imports of liquefied natural gas. So its exporters have switched over to Europe. In addition, in 2012 the United […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – December 26, 2013) As the last Greenpeace activist detained in the Arctic 30 protest received notification Thursday that he was cleared of all charges under a recently passed amnesty, several other international activists who’d already been granted amnesty received permission to leave Russia. The news marks the end of a saga that […]
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KYIV. Dec 18 (Interfax) – A Ukrainian opposition leader is concerned that President Viktor Yanukovych might have agreed with Russia on a $15-billion loan secured by Ukrainian strategic facilities. “According to some well-informed sources, a loan agreement for $15 billion secured by Ukrainian property has been signed,” opposition UDAR party leader Vitali Klitschko said at a demonstration on Tuesday. He […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 18 (Interfax) – Russia’s Gazprom (MOEX: GAZP) and Naftogaz Ukraine, in the presence of the two countries’ presidents on Tuesday, signed addenda to January 19, 2009 contracts on the purchase-sale, delivery and transshipment of natural gas for 2009-2019. Discount President Vladimir Putin said after the signing that the documents would enable Gazprom to supply gas to Ukraine at […]
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MOSCOW, December 18 (RIA Novosti) Russia’s deal to provide Ukraine with cheaper gas may mean billions of dollars in lost profits, an investment analyst told a business newspaper in remarks published Wednesday. President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would slash the price of its gas to Ukraine by one-third on Tuesday, down to $268.5 per 1,000 cubic meters from […]
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(Moscow News – moscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – December 11, 2013) With thousands still protesting in Kiev’s streets after Ukraine suspended plans to sign a trade association agreement with the European Union, beleaguered Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is still mulling whom to side with for closer economic cooperation – Russia or Europe. Here are six things Russian President Vladimir Putin […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yulia Ponomareva, RBTH – December 12, 2013) Russia intends to deploy a military force on its northern coast to engage in the fight for control over promising oil and gas reserves in the Arctic Ocean. Russia will send a military force to be set up in the Artic next year in order to […]
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[Rushing for the Arctic’s Riches – New York Times – Michael T. Klare – December 8, 2013 – http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/opinion/sunday/rushing-for-the-arctics-riches.html] Michael Klare and the New York Times address Russia’s temptation to exploit Arctic energy resources: While many existing oil and gas reserves in other parts of the world are facing steep decline, the Arctic is thought to possess vast untapped reservoirs. […]
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MOSCOW, December 5 (RIA Novosti) Ukraine owes Russia some $2 billion for gas supplies and no plan is in place to settle the debt, the head of Russia’s Gazprom said Wednesday. Alexei Miller, chief executive of state-owned Gazprom, said it was in discussions with Ukraine’s national energy company Naftogaz to find a solution. “We are seeking variants to resolve […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Irina Reznik & Henry Meyer – December 2, 2013) Russia will offer cheaper natural gas to Ukraine if the government in Kiev opts to join a Moscow-led economic bloc after halting free-trade talks with the European Union, according to First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. Ukraine’s economic difficulties will be best resolved if it chooses integration […]
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MOSCOW, December 2 (RIA Novosti) Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a landmark law breaking state-owned Gazprom’s monopoly on gas exports, according to a document published on a government site Monday. Gazprom will keep its export monopoly on gas carried through pipelines, but the new law will allow Russian producers to export liquefied natural gas, the super-cooled fuel increasingly […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Evgenia Pismennaya – November 24, 2013) Vladimir Putin wasn’t having a great day. The Russian president had spent the August morning in a helicopter over Khabarovsk, near the Chinese border, surveying flood damage that had left tens of thousands of people homeless. Then he met with senior advisers who were on the trip, for a briefing […]
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KIEV, November 24 (RIA Novosti) Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Sunday his country had secured Moscow’s pledge to review a gas contract Kiev believes to be unfavorable. “We have been persistently trying to persuade the Russian Federation to review the contract,” Azarov told Ukrainian TV channel ICTV. “Now, generally speaking, there is such a pledge, and we hope […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – November 22, 2013) Ukraine shocked European officials on November 21 when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych announced he was freezing negotiations with the EU and called for a three-way summit that includes Russia. Tensions have been rising ahead of an EU summit due to be held in Vilnius on November 28-19 at which Kyiv is […]
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(Oilprice.com – Charles Kennedy – November 19, 2013) More than 400 shale oil and gas wells will be drilled outside of the US in 2014, most of them in China and Russia, while Europe largely sits on the sidelines of the so-called revolution, according to energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie Ltd. The geological conditionsnot to mention the public supportfor a […]
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MOSCOW, November 18 (RIA Novosti) Russia and Ukraine have reached a compromise deal allowing Kiev to alter its payment schedule for Russian natural gas imports, Ukrainian Energy Minister Eduard Stavytsky said Monday. The new agreement will allow Kiev to pay on time for energy deliveries, honoring its commitments to both Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom and European consumers, Stavytsky […]
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MOSCOW, November 15 (RIA Novosti) Ukrainian national fuel company Naftogaz has resumed natural gas supplies from Russia, the chief executive of Russian energy giant Gazprom said Friday. “Naftogaz has stopped pumping gas out of its underground storage facilities and resumed purchases of Russian gas in accordance with the current contract,” Alexei Miller told reporters. Ukraine had halted Russian gas […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – November 13, 2013) Ukraine is finally trying to break its addiction to Russian gas and Cadogan Petroleum is one of those companies well placed to make that happen. A medium-sized independent oil and gas producer, Cadogan was responsible in 2011 for bringing Italian energy giant Eni into Ukraine to […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org – Donald N. Jensen – November 5, 2013) The visit by Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev to China once again highlighted the strategic importance that Moscow attaches to Asia. Donald N. Jensen, Resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, notes that the prospects for […]
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MOSCOW, November 5 (RIA Novosti) Ukraine is far from paying off hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom despite several payments, a company spokesman said Tuesday. “We have received several small installments for gas supplies in August, but it’s too early to speak about complete payment of the debt,” spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – November 4, 2013) Facing down Russian bullying on one side and an economic collapse that could only be months away, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has reportedly caved into long-standing pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on November 4 by saying his government would hike domestic gas tariffs. Ukraine’s hard currency reserves have been […]
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KYIV. Nov 2 (Interfax) – The Ukrainian government and the national oil and gas provider Naftogaz have basically fulfilled President Viktor Yanukovych’s instruction to significantly reduce the amount of natural gas purchases under a contract that Ukraine concluded with Russia during Yulia Tymoshenko’s premiership in 2009, Deputy Prime Minister Yury Boiko said. “Naftogaz and the government have basically fulfilled the […]
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(Interfax – Gorki, October 29, 2013) Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev has said that the authorities should ensure 100-per-cent collection of payments for gas, stressing that the time of “gas communism” was over. “We must ensure conditions for 100-per-cent collection of gas payments. I think everyone should realize that there will be no such all-encompassing forgiveness of debt, no ‘gas […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – October 30, 2013) In an intensifying fight between Russia and Ukraine, the gloves came off on October 29 when Gazprom hit Ukraine with just short of a $1bn gas bill in retribution for Kyiv’s decision to turn its back on the Russian-led Customs Union and throw in its lot with the EU with the […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, October 28, 2013) Russian nationalists and others have regularly criticized Vladimir Putin for building an economy and hence a state that relies on the export of raw materials rather than the development of industry and investment in human capital. But now two of them have stepped up this attack and argued that […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – October 25, 2013) Gazprom has started to operate the first offshore field that it has developed on its own, in a test of its power to perform the challenging task without foreign partners. Sitting off the Pacific island of Sakhalin, the Kirinskoye field will feed natural gas to Asia, as demand from […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – October 24, 2013) Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya platform, the advance guard of the coming expansion of Russia’s state energy corporations into the Arctic, is a cobbled together bric-a-brac of second-hand parts, some of which date to 1984, environmentalists said. The very presence of the Prirazlomnaya rig in the icy Pechora Sea is the result […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Robert Coalson – October 21, 2013) The United States is set to replace Russia as the world’s largest producer of oil and gas combined by the end of this year. This is just one element of a rapidly shifting global energy environment that is revolutionizing Russia’s once-dominant position. RFE/RL takes a look at the challenges and […]
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(Interfax – VERONA, Italy, October 18, 2013) Many European politicians do not realize that their countries would not benefit from producing shale gas, the head of contract structuring and pricing at LLC Gazprom Export, Sergei Komlev believes. “I think that there is no full understanding of this problem in Europe, particularly an understanding of the production costs of this issue. […]
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(RIA Novosti – KIEV, October 11, 2013) Russia has hit back at Ukraine after the Ukrainian prime minister threatened to stop all natural gas imports from Russia within the next few years unless the current gas contract is reviewed. On Thursday, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told RIA Novosti and Rossiya 24 TV channel that “Ukraine may stop buying […]
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(RIA Novosti – KIEV, October 10, 2013) Ukraine may stop all natural gas imports from Russia within the next few years if the current gas contract is not reviewed, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Thursday. “Under the existing gas prices we have reduced and will continue to reduce [gas imports], and in the future and this is not […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 2, 2013) The current challenge for the Russian economy is the need to accelerate labor productivity gains, since the current slow pace means that the economic orientation on raw materials extraction will continue, President Vladimir Putin said in Moscow on Wednesday at the Russia Calling investment forum organized by VTB Capital. “For Russia, the main, crucial […]
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(OilPrice.com – Daniel J. Graeber – September 26, 2013 – article also appeared at http://oilprice.com/Finance/the-Economy/World-Bank-Russian-Energy-Strength-is-Economic-Weakness.html; a version of the article also appeared in The Christian Science Monitor as “Is Russia’s economy running out of gas?” at http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/0926/Is-Russia-s-economy-running-out-of-gas) The head of the World Bank in Russia said Wednesday he was alarmed by the slowdown in the Russian economy. The bank said the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – September 26, 2013) It is impossible to stop Arctic exploitation, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday, adding that Russia guaranteed that there would be no environmental catastrophe, since the most innovative technologies would be used. SALEKHARD, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District The time for an industrial breakthrough has come in the Arctic, President Vladimir […]
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(Interfax – September 25, 2013) The Russian government plans to actively promote production of hydrocarbons and the development of LNG projects, and the country aims to have a 20 percent share of the world liquefied natural gas (LNG) market by 2030, Deputy Energy Minister Kirill Molodtsov said at the Sakhalin Oil and Gas 2013 conference. “The Russian Federation is currently […]
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(RIA Novosti – KIEV, September 25, 2013) Diversification of natural gas supplies by Ukraine and Europe made “gas wars” with Russia impossible, the Ukrainian foreign minister said on Tuesday. Russia and Ukraine have long fought over natural gas deliveries, jeopardizing supplies to Europe, a major Russian gas buyer. In the row at the start of 2009, Russia halted all […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – September 10, 2013) In the face of persistently high inflation and capital outflows, the Russian government has decided to freeze energy tariffs, which will give the economy a short-term boost, but will also stymie the long-term development of the economy. Times are tough in Russia after economic growth dropped […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – September 9, 2013) On the eve of elections, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev gave the government three days to prepare a feasibility study on how a possible freeze on natural monopolies’ prices next year might affect economic growth and business in general. The Cabinet on Friday was ordered to evaluate by Monday the […]
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(RIA Novosti – ST. PETERSBURG, September 5, 2013) Russian and Chinese state corporations signed a string of economic agreements including another document paving the way for the long-awaited multi-billion dollar gas deal, after President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met Thursday at the G20 summit in the city of St. Petersburg. Russian gas giant Gazprom and the […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 29, 2013) Gazprom, one of Moscow’s main sources of leverage in Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, is losing its positions in both places, something that has domestic consequences as well because the company is one of the largest taxpayers of the Russian Federation, according to a Moscow analyst. In […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 23, 2013) Russia expects that its application to the United Nations to approve its bid for extending the boundary of its part of the Sea of Okhotsk section of the continental shelf will receive consideration in the international organization early next year, said Deputy Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Minister Denis Khramov. Russia also wants the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtime.com – Anatoly Medetsky – July 17, 2013) President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday again said the Cabinet was slacking off. He blamed ministers for getting behind schedule in executing measures to develop the country’s Far East. “I’ll tell you what, dear friends, will you ever get to work or not? What is this?” Putin said, according to […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – July 2, 2013) President Vladimir Putin on Monday urged gas-exporting countries to step up joint efforts to deal with challenges that originated in the United States and Europe. He spoke at a conference of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, or GECF, which brought together delegates from such places as Iran, Qatar and […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 2, 2013) Abandoning the basic principles used to draw up long-term gas contracts will in the final analysis undermine the energy security of gas importing countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) summit in Moscow on Monday. He told delegates at the organization’s second meeting that the application of new […]
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(Interfax, MOSCOW, June 28, 2013) Turkey could become the biggest importer of Russian gas before very long, overtaking Germany, Gazprom (RTS: GAZP) CEO Alexei Miller told reporters. “Turkey wants to buy more of our gas as its needs grow and possibly due to a shortfall from other suppliers. The growth could be 20% in the near future on top of […]
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