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Russia Orders Ukraine to Prepay for Gas

Russia will demand that Ukraine prepay for June natural gas imports, and the first bill will be delivered to Kiev on May 16, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Thursday. Mr. Novak said the deadline that Ukraine had to settle its gas bill for earlier deliveries expired Wednesday and, according to the contract between Russian gas monopoly Gazprom and its Ukraine counterpart Naftogaz, Ukraine will have to pay for future deliveries in advance. The minister said starting in June Ukraine will receive only the volume of gas it had paid for by the end of May. Ukraine has run up a bill for Russian gas, which Gazprom said has reached $3.5 billion. Naftogaz confirmed earlier Thursday that no payment has been made to cover the debt. On Tuesday, Ukraine received a first installment, $3.19 billion, from a rescue package approved by the International Monetary Fund. Part of the money […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Moscow ups stakes in gas dispute

Gazprom will only supply Ukraine with gas that has been paid for in advance from the start of June, Moscow said on Thursday, after Kiev missed another deadline to pay its mounting energy debt to the Russian company. Alexander Novak, Russia’s energy minister, said the state-controlled enterprise would move to a system of pre-payment for supplies to Ukraine from next month, bringing the simmering gas dispute between the countries a step closer to crisis. The move to pre-payment raises the prospect of a disruption in gas supplies through Ukraine – a key transit point for about 15 per cent of European gas supplies. Cash-strapped Ukraine, which this week received the first $3.2bn tranche from a $17bn International Monetary Fund bailout , has refused to accept Gazprom’s move in April to increase gas prices from a first quarter rate of $268.50 per thousand cubic metres to $485.50. Oleksandr Todiichuk, deputy […]

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Greenpeace attempts to block Russian oil tanker

Greenpeace International activists are attempting to prevent a Russian tanker carrying the first oil from a new offshore platform in the Arctic from mooring at Rotterdam Port. The environmental group said Thursday it has sent two ships, Rainbow Warrior III and Esperanza, plus rubber rafts, paragliders and activists on shore, to meet the Mikhail Ulyanov, a tanker chartered by Russia’s state-controlled oil company, Gazprom OAO. Activists have painted the words "No Arctic Oil" in large letters on the hull of the Russian tanker, while rubber rafts are blocking access to the ship’s mooring place, the group said. Greenpeace opposes oil production inside the Arctic Circle, warning of the danger of a spill in a pristine and difficult-to-reach area – as well as the threat of worsening global warming caused by using fossil fuels. In September, 28 Greenpeace activists and two freelance journalists were arrested and charged […]

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Gazprom sales to Europe increased in 2013

Russian energy company Gazprom said Tuesday its sales of gas to Europe and others in the region was up more than 15 percent in 2013. Russia supplies about a quarter of the natural gas consumed in Europe, and most of that runs through a pipeline system in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic that’s tilted toward the European Union since political conflict erupted in November. Gazprom said in a report highlighting its financial results from 2013 that gas sales to Europe and other countries in the region totaled 6.1 trillion cubic feet, an increase of more than 15 percent from 2012. European leaders have looked to rival suppliers in Azerbaijan in an effort to break Russia’s grip on the region’s energy supply. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said following his meeting Monday with Slovakian Prime Minister a move to reverse gas flows from Slovakia […]

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Putin Says Sanctions Jeopardize U.S., EU Energy Deals

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that further economic sanctions over the Ukraine crisis may lead Russia to reconsider participation by U.S. and European Union companies in energy and other key industries. While his government has prepared measures to retaliate for penalties imposed by the U.S. and its allies, Putin told reporters in Minsk, Belarus, yesterday that he doesn’t consider them necessary for now, though that may change. If sanctions continue, “then of course we will have to consider who’s working and how in the Russian Federation, in the key sectors of the Russian economy, including energy,” he said. “We really don’t want to take these reciprocal steps.” Putin’s remarks added uncertainty for companies that have stakes in Russia’s energy industry, including Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) , which is planning Arctic drilling in an alliance with Russian state-controlled OAO Rosneft. (ROSN) The Russian leader spoke […]

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Wrong Type of Ice Hampers the Northern Sea Route

Energy giants SA, Russia’s OAO Novatec and China National Petroleum Co. are investing $27 billion to develop Yamal LNG, one of the world’s biggest gas export facilities deep inside the Arctic Circle in western Siberia. Yamal, "the end of the earth," in the local Nenets language, will require building LNG tankers powerful enough to smash through heavy ice. But engineers still haven’t figured out how to evacuate crew from those tankers in an emergency—underscoring how some of the industry’s trickiest obstacles in the Arctic are also some of the most basic. As warming seas melt arctic ice, shipping executives have been exploring the prospect of more commercial voyages through once-impassable waters. One of the most promising new thoroughfares is the Northern Sea Route, a passage through one of Russia’s northernmost archipelagoes. During a few warm months of each year, the route is now increasingly passable to ship traffic. Traversing […]

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Russia Ships First Arctic Oil, Fortifies Oil Defenses

Riding on his pride in the first export of Russian Arctic oil earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that allows oil and gas corporations to establish private armed security forces to defend their infrastructure, upping the ante for protestors. On the same day, April 22, Earth Day, Putin also met with the Russian Security Council. There he said, “Oil and gas production facilities, loading terminals and pipelines should be reliably protected from terrorists and other potential threats. Nothing can be treated as trivia here.” Meeting of Russia’s Security Council on Arctic policy, The Kremlin, April 22, 2014 (Photo courtesy Presidential Press and Information Office) At the Russian Security Council meeting Putin detailed Russia’s Arctic policy, which includes strengthening military infrastructure in the region, “by restoring a number of airfields beyond the Arctic Circle and the military base on the New Siberian Islands.” Putin also said […]

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Rosneft, Exxon to explore Russian arctic

Russian oil company Rosneft said it was moving ahead with a joint effort with Exxon Mobil to explore for hydrocarbons in the arctic waters of Russia. The board of directors said Monday they’d work to develop the Ust-Lensky reserve area in the northern Laptev Sea and the Severo-Vrangelevsky-1 in the Chukchi Sea in eastern Russia. Both sides would also explore parts of the Kara Sea under the terms of a joint venture operation, they said. Neither side offered a reserve estimated of the targeted areas. Changing weather patterns are leaving parts of the arctic ice-free for longer periods, giving energy companies a greater opportunity to explore frontier oil and natural gas basins. Environmental groups like Greenpeace have expressed concern about drilling campaigns in the pristine arctic environment. The environmental campaign group was critical during the weekend after it learned French energy company Total purchased […]

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Iran, Russia Hold Electricity Talks as Russia Seeks To Build Relationship

Iran held talks with Russia over $10 billion worth of electricity deals on Sunday, in the latest attempt by Moscow to leverage a privileged relationship with Tehran. Russia is already in talks with Iran to swap food and other goods for Iranian oil. The move is seen by some as a Russian attempt to take positions in Iran’s vast market when it opens up and assert its international clout amid increased tensions with the West. In a statement posted on its website, Iran’s energy ministry said Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian met his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak in Tehran on Sunday to discuss $10 billion worth of power deals. They included the construction of hydroelectric power plants and, according to the Mehr news agency, the possibility of Russia exporting 500 megawatts of electricity to Iran. Iran’s political allies Russia and China have renewed efforts to develop economic ties with Tehran […]

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Chernobyl: Capping a Catastrophe

Against the decaying skyline here, a one-of-a-kind engineering project is rising near the remains of the world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster. An army of workers, shielded from radiation by thick concrete slabs, is constructing a huge arch, sheathed in acres of gleaming stainless steel and vast enough to cover the Statue of Liberty. The structure is so otherworldly it looks like it could have been dropped by aliens onto this Soviet-era industrial landscape. If all goes as planned, by 2017 the 32,000-ton arch will be delicately pushed on Teflon pads to cover the ramshackle shelter that was built to entomb the radioactive remains of the reactor that exploded and burned here in April 1986. When its ends are closed, it will be able to contain any radioactive dust should the aging shelter collapse. By all but eliminating the risk of additional atmospheric contamination, the arch will remove the lingering […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple